Shahzad came to the United States and attended college, earning a bachelor's degree in computer applications and information systems from Connecticut's University of Bridgeport in 2000.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

But in order to fully leverage all the information generated by connected devices, organizations will need to integrate these data streams into their existing data systems and applications so that Big Data can be analyzed and decisions made in a business context.

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But on Abilene, information travels through a few hundred extremely large rivers in the form of high-bandwidth applications and complex academic systems.

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