We have seen that natural disasters and global crises have become more frequent, making communities around the world vulnerable to their impact. But, if we know the approximate location of mobile users at any given time, and how they react in terms of their mobility in crisis circumstances, it is possible to plan a thorough response in these situations.

For a project to be successful, there are many different steps involved. Working on projects that use big data for decision-making is not different, but since these technologies are still fairly new, decision-makers, organisations, and project managers might not have first-hand experience implementing these types of projects.

Mobile Tartu returned as an in-person event this year. The two-day conference was filled with fascinating lectures, sessions and panel discussions. Various topics related to mobile positioning data (MPD) were analysed, such as, standardising methodologies, mapping out actual places of residence and secondary homes, as well as smoother collaborations between the research community, decision-makers and mobile network operators.