United Nations Statistical Commission

Building on the recommendations contained in the report entitled "A world that counts: mobilizing the data revolution for sustainable development", issued by the Secretary-General's Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, the Statistical Commission established the Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics in 2014.

Exciting innovative work has been undertaken by the members of the GWG in the area of : (a) technology, innovation and analysis for leveraging and sharing data and data research; (b) capacity-building, technology transfer, data literacy and exploring resource mobilization through innovative financing mechanisms in partnership with the private sector; and (c) partnerships and coordination between governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and academia to promote good practices and principles for trusted data, methods, technology, learning and partnership.

This side event will showcase the tangible progress made by the GWG through its two streams of work: data collaboration and data services. With the achievements and the level of maturity of work of the GWG, we enter in a new era of great opportunity to scale the GWG work programme through partnership networks with subject matter experts from national statistical offices, academic institutions, civil society and private sector technology companies and proprietary data owners.

This side event will be a fantastic opportunity to have a broad dialogue among the representatives of the national statistical community on the benefits of an envisaged shared data collaboration and data services environment. Such an environment is presented as a global market place for official statistical purposes with sustained access to and use of trusted data, technology, methods and algorithms, learning and partners for research and development in the use of Big Data for official statistics and indicators.

The GWG co-chairs on data collaboration and data services and the GWG lead solution architect will elaborate on the progress of the work of the GWG and present the status and development of a Proof of Concept for the UN GWG Global Platform in a federated network of platforms. They will outline the plans for the next 18 months to connect partners for data collaboration in research and development for official statistics. Their introductions to the various work streams of the GWG will be the basis for the broader dialogue.

Agenda



1. Panellists:
   
2. Ms. Heather Savory, Deputy National Statistician of UK Office of National Statistics and Co-Chair of the Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics
3. Mr. Niels Ploug, Director of Social Statistics, Statistics Denmark and Co-Chair of the Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics
4. Mr. Mark Craddock, Solution Architect of UK Office of National Statistics and Lead Solutions Architect of the Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics