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International Conference on Big Data for Official Statistics
Organized by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and National Bureau of Statistics of China

Innovations in technology, broad use of electronic devices and the all-around generation of digital information brings fundamental changes to the availability of real-time information, such as data from GPS devices, from mobile phones or from social media. These high-volume and sometimes loosely structured data sources, commonly referred to as Big Data, are different from conventional data sources for official statistics, and have many challenges in their application. The business case still needs to be made for many statistical offices if, why and how Big Data are useful for official statistics.

The statistical community has recognized the potential use of big data for official statistics. The UN Statistical Commission therefore established in March 2014 a global working group mandated to provide strategic vision, direction and coordination of a global programme on Big Data for official statistics, to promote practical use of sources of Big Data for official statistics, while finding solutions for their challenges, and to promote capacity building and sharing of experiences in this respect.

Currently, mostly developed countries have started using various Big Data sources encountering a number of challenges. Mobile phone data, Traffic loop data, Twitter data and Satellite imagery have all been successfully used. Whereas national circumstances can be fairly unique, it is still intended to generalize the use of such Big Data sources to other countries, especially also in developing parts of the world.

Event Updates

Event video available:

5 November 2014 @ 15:00

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

International Conference on Big Data for Official StatisticsDay 2 started with a fascinating presentation from the invited expert Mr. Siu Ming-Tam (Australia Bureau of Statistics) on Satellite Imagery. He explained their work with satellite imagery data in order to replace surveys for measuring agricultural crop production. Following his presentation, representatives from DANE (Colombia), NBS China and INEGI (Mexico), presented three different applications of satellite imagery.

International Conference on Big Data for Official StatisticsMr. Ronald Jansen presented the key findings of the joint UNECE/UNSD Survey on Big Data projects. The survey collected information on overall Big Data strategies as well as detailed information about Big Data projects. The presentation complemented the individual presentation of Big Data projects, by providing a comprehensive synopsis of the status of Big Data projects in the statistical community.

29 October 2014 @ 12:00

Day 2 concluded with a captivating discussion of the use of twitter and other social media for official statistics. The invited expert, Mr. Andrew Schwartz (University of Pennsylvania) discussed the process of acquiring social media sources, which he claimed is the largest dataset on human behavior, and demonstrated various projects using social media. Statistics Netherlands, INEGI (Mexico), ISTAT (Italy), NBS China and Baidu all presented projects that explore the use of social media to replace or reduce the reliance on surveys. The chair of the session, Mr. Trevor Sutton (Australia Bureau of Statistics) summarized by saying that the session showed that the statistical community is making strong progress in this area, and even if there are numerous methodological challenges, this is a natural part of the modernization process and that the Staticial Community should work to overcome the challenges.

29 October 2014 @ 16 :00

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

International Conference on Big Data for Official StatisticsThe opening of the International Conference on Big Data in Beijing was inspiring with Mr. Ma, Chief Statistician of China, Mr. Stefan Schweinfest, Director of UNSD, and Mr. Trevor Sutton, Deputy Australian Statistician, setting the tone. China has been working on Big Data since 2012, and follows a dual track strategy, developing Big Data applications in parallel to its production work. UNSD placed Big Data in the context of the recent call by the international community for a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, and ABS, as Chair of the UN Global Working Group on Big Data, recognized that the GWG will need to deliver a global work programme for the coming years. Mr. Steven Landefeld (consultant to UNSD) gave a Key note speech which was cautiously upbeat about the promise of Big Data, seeing its potential especially in improving timeliness and relevance of official statistics, not unlike the role of, for instance, some administrative records for GDP estimates.

28 October 2014 @ 12:00

International Conference on Big Data for Official StatisticsMobile Phone positioning data, GPS and other tracking devices were discussed in detail in the afternoon session. Mr. Margus Tiru presented the difference between active and passive mobile phone location data, and showed a number of different statistical applications, such tourism, day time mobility and estimation of population census data. The key challenges remain public trust in the use of mobile phone data, and the protection of privacy and confidentiality.

28 October 2014 @ 16 :00

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

9:00 – 9:30
Opening session Chair: Mr. Xie Hongguang, Deputy Commissioner of NBS, China
  • Mr. Ma Jiantang, Commissioner of NBS, China
  • Mr. Stefan Schweinfest, Director, United Nations Statistics Division
  • Mr. Trevor Sutton, Chair UN Global Working Group on Big Data
9:30 - 10:30
Keynotes Chair: Mr. Stefan Schweinfest, Director, United Nations Statistics Division
  • Ma Jiantang (Commissioner of NBS China): Research and Application of Big Data in Official Statistics in China
  • Steven Landefeld: Big Data for Official Statistics: Privacy, Incentives, and Statistical Challenges
  • Greg Scott: Big Data and Geo-spatial information
10:30 - 11:00
Tea break
11:00 - 12:00
Panel discussion: Big Data and the international statistical community
Chair: Trevor Sutton, Deputy Australian Statistician, ABS
  • Steven Vale, Chief of Statistical Management and Modernisation Unit, Statistical Division, UNECE
  • Albrecht Wirthmann, Head of Innovation Section, Eurostat
  • Margarita F. Guerrero, Director, Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific, UNESCAP
  • Ronald Jansen, Chief of Trade Statistics Branch, UNSD

14:00 - 17:00
Mobile Phone, GPS and other tracking devices Chair: Steven Vale, UNECE
  1. Invited expert: Margus Tiru, Positium (45 min)
    1. What is the typology of the data source?
    2. What are the challenges?
    3. Who are the partners?
  2. Examples
    1. Peter Struijs, Programme Manager, Statistics Netherlands – Mobile Phone data for daytime populations (15 min)
    2. Emanuele Baldacci, Head of Department for Integration, Quality, research and Production Networks, Italian Institute for Statistics – Mobile phone data for Mobility statistics (15min)
15:30 - 15:45
TEA BREAK
    1. Susan Teltscher, Head ICT Data and Statistics Division, ITU – Mobile phone devices and ICT indicators (15min)
    2. Peter Struijs, Programme Manager, Statistics Netherlands – Traffic loop data for Transport Statistics (15 min)
    3. NBS China – Exploring the Use of Big Data in Transport Statistics (15 min)
  1. Conclusions – Project template (20 min)

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

9:00 - 12:00
Satellite Imagery and other geo-spatial information Chair: Emanuele Baldacci, Head of Department for Integration, Quality, research and Production Networks, Italian Institute for Statistics
  1. Invited expert: Siu-Ming Tam, Chief Methodologist, Australian Bureau of Statistics (45 min)
    1. What is the typology of the data source?
    2. What are the challenges?
    3. Who are the partners?
    4. Example - Use of satellite images for measuring agricultural crop production
  2. Examples
    1. Sandra Yaneth Rodriquez Figueroa, Coordinator Research and Development, DANE (Colombia) – Use of satellite images for agricultural statistics (15 min)
    2. NBS China – Use of Remote Sensing Technology and Information in Agricultural Statistics (15 min)
    3. Enrique Jesus Ordaz Lopez, Director General Analysis and Research, INEGI (Mexico) – Combining social, economic and environment statistics utilizing geospatial data (15 min)
  3. Conclusions – Project template (15 min)
10:45 – 11:00
TEA BREAK
11:00 - 12:00
Project survey and project templates
  1. Overview of UNECE / UNSD Survey on Projects
  2. General description of Project template
14:00 - 17:00
Twitter and other Social Media Chair: Trevor Sutton, Deputy Australian Statistician, ABS
  1. Invited expert: Prof. Andrew Schwartz (Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania) (45 min)
    1. What is the typology of the data source?
    2. What are the challenges?
    3. Who are the partners?
  2. Examples
    1. Peter Struijs, Programme Manager, Statistics Netherlands – Facebook and Twitter data for Consumer confidence index (15 min)
    2. Enrique Jesus Ordaz Lopez, Director General Analysis and Research, INEGI (Mexico) – Use of social media data for official statistics (15 min)
    3. Emanuele Baldacci, Head of Department for Integration, Quality, research and Production Networks, Italian Institute for Statistics – Web scraping for Labor statistics (15 min)
15:30 - 15:45
TEA BREAK
    1. NBS China – Online Price Data Capture (15 min)
    2. NBS China - Real Estate Price Forecasting on the Basis of Network Data Search (15 min)
    3. Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd – Application of Baidu Search Index (15 min)
  1. Conclusions – Project template (15 min)

Thursday, 30 October 2014

9:00 - 10:30
Commonalities on benefits and challenges of Big Data sources
Chair: Steven Landefeld, Senior Advisor of UNSD
  • Panelists:
    • Albrecht Wirthmann, Head of Innovation Section, Eurostat
    • Emanuele Baldacci, Head of Department for Integration, Quality, research and Production Networks, Italian Institute for Statistics
    • Susanne Schnorr-Bäcker, Head of Section Federal Statistical Office of Germany
    • Ronald Jansen, Chief of Trade Statistics Branch, UNSD
  • Discussion:
    1. Common methodological issues and quality concerns
    2. Common privacy issues - Legal frameworks, ethical guidelines and trusted technology solutions to safeguard privacy
    3. Common issues on partnerships – Data acquisition, Division of responsibilities
    4. Common IT issues – Cloud computing
10:30 - 10:45
TEA BREAK
10:45 - 12:00
Introducing innovation, especially in developing country circumstances Chair: Ronald Jansen, UNSD
  • Steven Vale, Chief of Statistical Management and Modernisation Unit, Statistical Division, UNECE – Big Data sprints (10 min)
  • Malarvizhi Veerappan, Senior Data Scientist, World Bank– Big Data and development (10 min)
  • Susan Teltscher, Head ICT Data and Statistics Division, ITU – Big Data strategy (10 min)
  • Marko Javorsek, Associate Statistician, UNESCAP – Big Data in developing country circumstances (10 min)
14:00 - 16:45
The way forward - making the business case for Big Data Chair: Ronald Jansen ,UNSD
  • Siu-Ming Tam, Chief Methodologist, Australian Bureau of Statistics (10 min)
  • Peter Struijs, Programme Manager, Statistics Netherlands (10 min)
  • Xian Zude , Chief Methodologist, NBS China (10 min)
  • Enrique Jesus Ordaz Lopez, Director General Analysis and Research, INEGI (Mexico) (10 min)
  • Suraiya Begum, Secretary, Ministry of Planning, Bangladesh (10 min)
16:45 - 17:00
Closing: UNSD, Zheng Jingping (Chief Information Officer of NBS China)

Venue

For more attendee information, please see Information Note.

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Ronald Jansen and Kenneth Iversen
bigdata@un.org

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