  EMBERS is an anticipatory intelligence system forecasting population-level
events in multiple countries of Latin America. A deployed system from 2012,
EMBERS has been generating alerts 24x7 by ingesting a broad range of data
sources including news, blogs, tweets, machine coded events, currency rates,
and food prices. In this paper, we describe our experiences operating EMBERS
continuously for nearly 4 years, with specific attention to the discoveries it
has enabled, correct as well as missed forecasts, and lessons learnt from
participating in a forecasting tournament including our perspectives on the
limits of forecasting and ethical considerations.
