6th International Conference on
Big Data for Official Statistics
Organized jointly by
Statistics Korea and the UN Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics

Global collaboration on Big Data

The 6th International Conference on Big Data for official statistics will take place from 31 August — 2 September 2020 as a virtual event. The Conference is organized by Statistics Korea (KOSTAT) and the United Nations Global Working Group (GWG) on Big Data for Official Statistics. The main theme of the Conference is "How can Big Data help in the COVID-19 response?" Related themes are: "How can Big Data support the monitoring of the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals?" and "The need for global data collaboration on global emerging issues".

Use of new data sources and new technologies, such as AI and machine learning, can make statistical operations more cost effective and provide timelier, more frequent and more granular statistical outputs, which is especially important to support rapid assessment of the COVID-19 situation and also to provide policy-supporting indicators for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The GWG created the UN Global Platform as a collaborative environment to use new data sources, develop new methods and algorithms, and use advanced technologies for the global statistical system. Training is a must if statistical offices want to collaborate in projects on the platform. The GWG has started an ambitious training program for statistical offices based on a competency framework ("Which skills are needed") and a maturity matrix ("which skills are currently available in the statistical office?"). This training program will be rolled out gradually over the next two years.

This conference will discuss and give examples of work related to COVID-19 response, use of the UN Global Platform and the initiative for global training on Big Data. The conference hopes to demonstrate that the UN Global Platform and the corresponding global training program can have a real impact on the service delivery of national statistical institutes.

Agenda

Day 1: Morning Sessions

Ceremonial Opening
Moderator: Mr. Ronald Jansen, Assistant Director, UN Statistics Division
  • Mr. Shin-Wook Kang, Commissioner, KOSTAT, Republic of Korea
  • Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
  • Mr. Kiyoung Choi, Minister of Science and ICT, Republic of Korea
  • Mr. Risenga Maluleke, Statistician General of South Africa and Co-Chair of the UN Global Working Group on Big Data
  • Mr. Stefan Schweinfest, Director, UN Statistics Division
Session 1: The role of statistical community in COVID-19 response and implications for SDG monitoring - HIGH LEVEL PANEL DISCUSSION
Moderator: Ms. Gemma Van Halderen, Director of Statistics Division, UNESCAP
  • Part A - Interview / Davos-style Panel - Policy makers
    • Mr. Elliot Harris, Assistant Secretary-General and Chief Economist, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs
    • Ms. Ayush Ariunzaya, Minister of Social Protection and Labour, Mongolia
  • Part B - Panel - Senior Managers - Official Statistics
    • Mr. Yvan Clermont, Director General for the Analytical Studies Branch, Statistics Canada
    • Mr. Juan Daniel Oviedo Arango, Director General, DANE Colombia
    • Mr. Kecuk Suhariyanto, Director General, BPS Indonesia
    • Mr. Asaph Y. Chun, Director General of Statistics Research Institute, Republic of Korea
    • Mr. Craig Jones, Deputy Government Statistician, Statistics New Zealand

Day 1: Afternoon Sessions

Session 2: USING BIG DATA FOR COVID-19 RESPONSE
Moderator: Prof. Taejun Lee, KDI School of Public Policy and Management
  • Panelist 1: Mr. Moon PARK, Head of Digital Innovation Centre, KPMG
  • Panelist 2: Ms. Tracey Li, Flowminder
  • Panelist 3: Mr. Omar Seidu, Ghana
  • Panelist 4: Ms. Frankie Kay, ONS, UK
  • Panelist 5: Mr. Mart Mägi, Statistics Estonia
SESSION 3: USING BIG DATA FOR SDGS - MOBILE DATA FOR TOURISM, MIGRATION, POPULATION AND TRANSPORT
Moderator: Esperanza Magpantay, ITU
  • Panelist 1: Mr. Dong-ok Lee, Head of IoT/Data department, SK Telecom
  • Panelist 2: Ms. Titi Kanti Lestari, BPS Indonesia
  • Panelist 3: Mr. Erwin Knippenberg, World Bank
  • Panelist 4: Mr. May Offermans, Statistics Netherlands

Day 2: Morning Sessions

Session 4: ACHIEVING THE SDGS IN A TIME OF COVID-19
Moderator: Ms. Gemma Van Halderen, UNESCAP
  • Part A: Global perspective
    • Ms. Yongyi Min, UN Statistics Division
    • Mr. Luis Gonzalez, UN Statistics Division
  • Part B: Country perspective
    • Mr. Ramiz Uddin, UNDP Bangladesh
    • Ms. Litia Kurisaqila-Mate, Fiji Bureau of Statistics
    • Mr. Richard Evans, Statistics New Zealand
Session 5: MONITORING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF COVID-19
Moderator: Mr. Ivo Havinga, UN Statistics Division
  • Part A: Global perspective
    • Mr. Markie Muryawan, UN Statistics Division
    • Mr. Diego Alejandro Cerdeiro, IMF
    • Mr. Ananthanarayan Sainarayan, ICAO
  • Part B: Country perspective
    • Ms. Catherine Smyth, ABS Australia
    • Mr. Chhime Tshering, NSB Bhutan
    • Mr. Kyeongwon Yoo, Sangmyung University
    • Dr. Mohd Uzir Mahidin, DOS Malaysia

Day 2: Afternoon Sessions

Session 6: USING BIG DATA FOR SDGS - SDG 9 AND SDG 11
Moderator: Niels Ploug, Statistics Denmark
  • Ms. Dana Thompson, IDEAMAPS Network
  • Mr. Robert Ndugwa, UN-Habitat
  • Ms. Nale Mudau, South Africa (SISNet)
  • Mr. Robin Workman, TRL, United Kingdom
  • Mr. Justin Angelo O. Bantang, Philippine Statistics Authority, Philippines
SESSION 7: USING BIG DATA FOR SDGS - SDG 16
Moderator: Ms. Angela Me, UN Office on Drugs and Crime
  • Ms. Francesca Rosa, UN Office on Drugs and Crime
  • Ms. Dilek Fraisl, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
  • Dr. Juyoung Song, Penn State University
  • Dr. Erin Miller, University of Maryland

Day 3: Morning Sessions

Session 8: USE OF SATELLITE DATA FOR AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, OCEANS
Moderator: Mr. Gordon Reichert, Statistics Canada
  • Mr. Shi Kaifen, NBS China
  • Ms. Kerrie Mengersen, QUT Data Science, Australia
  • Ms. Jacinta Holloway Brown, QUT Data Science, Australia
  • Mr. Ken Bagstad, United States Geological Survey
  • Mr. Lorenzo De Simone, UN Food and Agriculture Organization
  • Ms. Hoang Viet Anh, MONRE, Viet Nam
  • Mr. Bruno Sanchez-Andrade, Microsoft
Session 9: GLOBAL DATA COLLABORATIVES AND CO-INVESTMENTS
Moderator: Mr. Stefan Schweinfest, UN Statistics Division
  • Part A: Development Cooperation perspective
    • Mr. Dominic Bourcier, Global Affairs Canada
    • Ms. Elaine Tan, Asian Development Bank
    • Mr. Xian Zude, NBS China
  • Part B: User perspective
    • Ms. Gemma Van Halderen, UNESCAP
    • Mr. Robert McLellan, Statistics Canada
    • Mr. Niels Ploug, Statistics Denmark
    • Ms. Lina Hang, NIS Cambodia

Day 3: Afternoon Sessions
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Session 10: TRAINING IN USE OF NEW DATA SOURCES AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Moderator: Mr. Dominik Rozkrut, Statistics Poland
  •   Mr. Christophe Bontemps, UNSIAP, Japan
  •   Ms. Jeong-ran Kim, Statistics Training Institute, Statistics Korea
  •   Mr. David Johnson, ONS/Data Science Campus, UK
  •   Ms. Ceri Regan, ONS/Data Science Campus, UK
  •   Ms. Dominika Nowak, Statistics Poland
  •   Mr. Alex Measure, U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics
  •   Ms. Marta Kruczek-Szepel, Statistics Poland
  •   Ms. Krystyna Piątkowska, Statistics Poland
CLOSING SESSION: GLOBAL PLATFORM, GLOBAL TRAINING, GLOBAL COLLABORATION
Moderator: Ms. Claire Melamed, CEO of Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data
  • Part A – UN Global Platform and Regional Hubs
    • Mr. Tom Smith, UK
    • Mr. Yusuf Murangwa, Rwanda
    • Mr. Mohammed Hasan, UAE
    • Mr. Xian Zude, China
  • Part B – Collaboration and Training – National and Regional Perspective
    • Mr. Bert Kroese, Netherlands
    • Mr. Dennis Mapa, Philippines
    • Mr. Louis Kouakou, African Development Bank
  • Part C - Closing
    • Ms. Gemma Van Halderen, UNESCAP
    • Mr. Risenga Maluleke, South Africa
    • Mr. Kwang-sup Kim, Vice Commissioner, KOSTAT

The 6th International Conference on Big Data for official statistics will take place from 31 August — 2 September 2020 as a virtual event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The main theme of the Conference is "How can Big Data help in the COVID-19 response?" Related themes are: "How can Big Data support the monitoring of the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals?" and "The need for global data collaboration on global emerging issues".

The Conference is organized by Statistics Korea and the United Nations Global Working Group (GWG) on Big Data for Official Statistics, which was created under the UN Statistical Commission in 2014.

The GWG provides strategic vision, direction and the coordination of a global programme on the use of new data sources and new technologies, which are essential for national statistical systems to remain relevant in a fast-moving data landscape. Over the years the GWG produced guidance through Handbooks and training materials on topics such as use of satellite data for estimating agricultural crop statistics, use of mobile phone data for measuring tourism statistics or use of scanner data for calculating price statistics. The GWG also built a digital collaborative environment (called the UN Global Platform) to work together on new data solutions with the whole statistical community and to learn together.

Use of new data sources and new technologies, such as AI and machine learning, can make statistical operations more cost effective and provide timelier, more frequent and more granular statistical outputs, which is especially important to support rapid assessment of the COVID-19 situation and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 231 SDG indicators. This conference will demonstrate how that is possible.

COVID-19 responses

Government interventions have proven to be critical for mitigating the spread of COVID-19. These include testing and tracing, bans on large gatherings, closures of businesses and educational facilities, restrictions on international travel and mandatory quarantine. Review and evaluation of the effects of such interventions require specific, reliable, and timely data, especially on mobility and physical copresence. Mobile phone data, when used properly and carefully, can deliver insights on those issues.

At the same time that the statistical community develops methods for measuring human mobility, it also wants to maintain public trust in the use of statistics and indicators. Statisticians need to explicitly discuss how it guarantees privacy, data security and only use of the data for statistical purposes.

The statistical community can also help to assess the socio-economic impact of the pandemic, for example in the domains of trade, travel and transportation. The GWG has been successful in compiling weekly indicators for maritime transport (number of port calls) and for air travel and transport. High-frequency and timely indicators are needed to effectively steer and adapt policy measures to rebuild the global economy.

Sustainable Development Goals — "Building Back Better"

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was launched in September 2015 to improve lives of all people, especially the most vulnerable, while saving the environment and fostering peace. The statistical community has been asked to take a leading role in making data available for monitoring of progress on the path towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). New data and new technologies have the potential to deliver timely, high-frequent and detailed data to underpin the SDG indicators and government policies for the 2030 Agenda. The Conference will give examples of where new data sources have been used successfully for the SDG indicators.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the path towards achieving the 2030 Agenda has become more difficult. Many governments have started a campaign to "building back better", meaning to pick up and reinvigorate efforts in building society, economy and environment after the pandemic is over. Good data for the SDG indicators will be essential in those efforts. The latest SDG report was recently released and describes the mentioned issues in detail, see https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2020/

Global collaboration on data solutions and training

The GWG created the UN Global Platform as a collaborative environment to develop and test new data sources, methods and algorithms for the global statistical system. Specifically, the platform hosts solutions for compiling agricultural crop statistics using satellite data and compiling maritime transport statistics using AIS vessel tracking data. Many more pilot projects can be initiated on the platform involving not only the statistical community and related public sector but also stakeholders from private sector, academia and civil society.

Training in use of new data sources and new technologies is a must if statistical offices want to collaborate in projects on the UN Global Platform. The GWG has started an ambitious training program for the global statistical community underpinned by a competency framework ("Which skills are needed") and a maturity matrix ("which skills are currently available in the statistical office?"). This global training program on use of Big Data for official statistics will be rolled out gradually over the next two years.

Programme

Monday — 31 Aug 2020

  • Opening Ceremony
  • COVID-19 response by the statistical community

Tuesday — 1 Sep 2020

  • Big Data and the Sustainable Development Goals

Wednesday — 2 Sep 2020

  • Global data collaboration and global training program

Recorded Sessions

Documents

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