Gabriella Vukovich

President, Hungarian Central Statistical Office

Gabriella Vukovich was appointed President of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office in 2010, and serves as Chief Statistician of Hungary since 2017.

She was elected Vice-President of the ISI Executive Committee for the period 2019-2021. She was also elected Co-chair of the UN High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity-Building for the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda in 2015.

Previously, she was a consultant in Social Statistics and Demography. Between 1998 and 2004 she was Vice-President of the HCSO, and prior to that she was director of the Census Department.

From 2012 to 2013, she was elected Chair of the United Nations Statistical Commission. In 2014, she was the Acting Chair of the UNSC.

She worked as a demographer at the Population Activities Unit of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva and as a Population and Development specialist at the Population Division of the United Nations in New York.

She holds a doctorate degree from the Faculty of Law at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, an Honorary Professor title from the National University of Public Service and from the University of Miskolc, as well as an Honorary Doctor title from the University of Miskolc.

Gabriella also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the first and second United Nations World Data Forum.

Ola Awad

President, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)

Ola Awad is a member of the Palestinian community, regionally and internationally, with over 20 years’ experience working on various topics including modernization of Statistics, Sustainable Development, Gender Equality, Youth, Labor Market, Palestinian Economy, Good Governance, Statistical Literacy, Management and Communication. She has been the President of PCBS since 2009, leading the successful development and implementation of various statistical and non-statistical programs on the local, regional and international levels.

She was the first woman elected from developing countries and the Arab region to lead the IAOS and she is currently the co-chair for the High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity-Building for Statistics for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (HLG-PCCB) as well as a council member in the ISI for the years (2017-2021). She has represented the Arab region in the HLG-PCCB over two terms, in addition, she is a member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR), a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, and has been a fellow of the Aspen Institute Middle East Leadership Initiative (MELI) since 2013.

She holds a Doctorate of Business Administration from the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom), an Master of Science in Applied Statistics from Birzeit University, a Master degree in Business Administration and Management from Boston University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Birzeit University.

Ola also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the second United Nations World Data Forum.

Elsa Dhuli

Director General, Institute of Statistics Albania (INSTAT)

Elsa Dhuli was appointed the Director General of Institute of Statistics Albania (INSTAT) in November 2020, previously she was acting Director General for more than a year. She holds a Doctorate of Statistics from the University of Tirana, Faculty of Economics. She has 28 years’ experience in the field of statistics. Previously, she was the Director of the General Directorate of Statistical Production and before that the Coordinator of Quality Statistics, Director of Economic Statistics. Since 1994, Elsa has led the implementation of the European Economic Classification and Product Classification in Albania, being co-chair of the National Commission on Classifications and now Chair of this Commission. She led the Census of Economic Enterprises in 2010. She has contributed to drafting the Official Statistical Programme and Strategy of INSTAT. As a Quality Coordinator she contributed in developing the strategy for National Statistical System, Quality Guidelines, Access on Microdata Policy, and the Performance Assessment Framework.

Elsa has developed capacities in the field of statistics by her attendance and participation in different training, workshops and working groups. She is the country coordinator for the e-GDDS platform (NSDP-IMF) for the statistics and for the OECD - WB Regional for Competitiveness outlook report for statistics, member of the Monitoring Committee of the SEE 2020 strategy, and most recently a member of the Administrative Council of the Social Insurance Institute and the negotiator for the Albanian EU accession representing Chapter 18 "Statistics".

Camilo Ceita

Director General, National Statistical Office of Angola

Camilo Ceita was appointed Director General of the national statistics office in 2011. He started serving as the Head of Department of Population Living Conditions Monitoring. He is currently the Co-Chair of the High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity-Building for statistics for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In 2014, he coordinated the realization of the first full Population and Housing Census in Angola.

Prior to this, he was the National Director of the Environment of the Ministry Environment, Director of Sustainable Development of British Petroleum (BP) Angola and Head of Programme Unit of the UNDP Angola.

He graduated in Geographical Sciences in France, and holds post graduate degrees in Urban Geographical Information System, Survey Data Processing and ‘Social dimension of adjustment’, and Statistics Analysis Poverty and Multivariate Analysis, from the University of Paris 7 in France, Cote d'Ivoire, and American University respectively.

Zachary Mwangi

Director General, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics

Mr. Zachary Mwangi Chege has over 27 years' experience in the public service. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (First class Honors) from University of Nairobi and a Masters of Arts in Economic Policy Management, Makerere University, Uganda. He has expertise in official statistics, strategic management, surveys and censuses implementation, public policy analysis, budgeting, and project management, among others.

Prior to his current appointment as the Director General of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), he was the Director of Macroeconomic Statistics, KNBS, from 2008 to 2012. From 1991 to 2008 he worked in the mainstream civil service rising to the position of Chief Economist in the Ministry of Planning and National Development.

He has coordinated the preparation of various publications including, Annual Economic Survey reports, Annual Statistical Abstract reports, Quarterly GDP reports, Socio Economic Atlas, various survey reports, Public Expenditure Review reports, Quarterly Budget Review reports and District Development Plans.

He has attended various courses and workshops, both locally and abroad, on Regional Integration, Statistical Developments, Public Expenditure Management, Financial Programming and Policies, Risk Management, Quality Management System, Project Management, Macroeconomic analysis and modeling, among others.

Christoph Aubrecht

Geospatial Strategy Advisor, European Space Agency

Christoph Aubrecht represents the European Space Agency (ESA) at the World Bank, providing strategic advice and coordinating collaborative activities. ESA’s Earth Observation for Sustainable Development initiative provides support to International Financial Institutions in increasing uptake of Earth Observation with the aim of long-term mainstreaming and transfer into development operations.

Prior to joining ESA, Chris was leading the spatial analytics efforts under the World Bank’s Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Country Disaster Risk Profiles (CDRP) disaster resilience initiative. For 10 years he also worked at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), in the end serving as senior geospatial strategy advisor. Further previous affiliations include GFDRR, EADS-Astrium, NOAA, Columbia University’s CIESIN and the associated NASA SEDAC, and the University of Southern California.

He was recently appointed as visiting professor in GIScience at University of Vienna where he had previously served for several years as adjunct lecturer. He holds a PhD in integrated GIScience and remote sensing from Vienna University of Technology, a prior Master’s degree from the University of Vienna, and certificates in executive leadership and management development from Harvard University.

Shaida Badiee

Co-founder and Managing Director, Open Data Watch

Shaida Badiee is a co-founder and managing director of Open Data Watch, an NGO focused on monitoring and promoting open data in national statistical offices. She is a senior advisor to Data2X working on closing gender data gaps. She has been an active member of the UN Secretary General’s advisory group on data revolution, co-chairs the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Data Network, and has played a key role with the startup of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data.

Shaida brings several decades of experience in managing global development statistics as the long-time Director of the World Bank’s Development Data Group. During her tenure, flagship global statistical products were launched such as the World Development Indicators, Global Development Finance, and the Atlas of Global Development. In 2010, she led the World Bank’s Open Data Initiative, a ground-breaking program to provide full and free access to the World Bank’s extensive statistical databases. Prior to that, she played a key role in the creation and operation of PARIS21 as well as leading international efforts to coordinate technical and financial support for statistics through initiatives like the Marrakech Action Plan.

Shaida also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the second United Nations World Data Forum.

Lidia Bratanova

Director of the Statistical Division of the UN Economic Commission for Europe

Lidia Bratanova is Director of the Statistical Division of the UN Economic Commission for Europe since June 2009. Since 2011 she is also manages the work of the UNECE Population unit.

Mrs. Bratanova has more than 30 years of experience in official statistics, both at national and international level. She joined the UNECE in 1996 where she has been working in various positions in the Statistical Division. From 2003 to 2009 she was Secretary of the Conference of European Statisticians and Deputy Director. Prior to joining the UNECE, Mrs. Bratanova worked for three years with the Statistics Directorate of OECD in Paris, specializing in economies in transition in Easter Europe, Caucuses and Central Asia.

She is Bulgarian and from 1981 to 1992 worked at the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria.

Javier Carranza Tresoldi

Founder, GeoCensos

Javier Carranza Tresoldi is recognized as a world-class geo data scientist, an open government expert and a civic tech open data leader. Javier is the founder of GeoCensos, a Latin American based foundation for geo open data advocacy that analyzes geospatial technology trends, formulates projects to integrate government statistics with geographic information system (GIS). He has organized many participative data events, like Mapps Hackathon and Space Apps Challenge. He is deeply involved with the data revolution and has promoted the Stats Up program and the Map 4 Census project for capacity building at National Statistics Offices advocating for the use and production of open data in the official realm.

Haishan Fu

Director, Development Data Group, World Bank

Haishan Fu is the Director of the World Bank’s Development Data Group, overseeing its global development monitoring and open data initiative, surveys and other technical advisory services, and global statistical programs such as the International Comparison Program. In her capacity as the Ex-Officio member of the World Bank Group (WBG) Data Council and the Co-Chair of the Development Data Directors Group, Haishan leads and coordinates the development and implementation of the Bank’s development data agenda. She has been an active leader in the global statistical community, having served or currently serving as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, Council Member of the International Statistical Institute, and Co-Chair of the Global Steering Committee of the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics, among others. Haishan holds a Ph.D. in Demography from Princeton University and a B.A. in Economics from Peking University.

Haishan also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the first and second United Nations World Data Forum.

Magda Berhe

Advisor and Policy Specialist, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)

Magda Berhe is an Advisor and Policy Specialist at the Analytical Unit at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Prior to joining Sida, Magda worked as a Head of Program in Education and Learning where she managed a portfolio of projects specifically to prepare teachers to work with digitalization to increase learning outcomes among students in various countries in Africa, Asia and South America. She has broad experience in development cooperation, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Capacity building for creating and measuring indicators to inform the evaluation plan, data analysis and reporting.

Magda is a graduate of Birmingham University (United Kingdom) with a Master of Science in Poverty Reduction and Development Management and a Bachelor degree in Political Science and International Studies.

Johannes Jütting

Executive Head, Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21)

Johannes Jütting leads PARIS21’s work in strengthening national statistical systems, promoting the integration of statistics and reliable data in the decision-making process and advocating for countries as crucial actors in the global development agenda. Prior to joining PARIS21, Johannes led poverty reduction teams at the OECD Development Centre and at the Centre for Global Development Research (ZEF). Johannes holds a PhD in Development and Agriculture Economics from Humboldt-University and regularly publishes about issues relating to data, statistics, development and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Johannes also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the first and second United Nations World Data Forum.

Robert Kirkpatrick

Director, UN Global Pulse

Robert Kirkpatrick is Director of UN Global Pulse, an innovation initiative, harnessing big data and artificial intelligence for sustainable development and humanitarian action. Since 2010, Robert has directed a network of Pulse Labs in Jakarta, Kampala, and New York, developing real-time and predict analytics solutions to strengthen decision making in public sector institutions and guiding policy reform to ensure responsible use of big data for the public good. Robert was the founding CTO of the Silicon Valley global health and disaster technology NGO InSTEDD, and the co-founder of Microsoft Humanitarian Systems. He has spent more than 20 years developing technology solutions for public and private sector organizations, with a focus on catalyzing organizational change.

Robert also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the first and second United Nations World Data Forum.

Sarah Lucas

Program Officer, Global Development and Population

Sarah Lucas is a Program Officer in Global Development and Population at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She manages a portfolio of grants designed to increase the use of data and evidence to improve public policies in developing countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.

Previously, Sarah worked at the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation, where she served as the country team lead for Liberia and as a senior policy adviser representing the agency in government-wide initiatives to advance the president’s global development policy.

Sarah has also worked at the Center for Global Development where she led strategy to make the center’s research influential for legislative and executive branch policymakers and advocacy groups. She has traveled and conducted policy analysis in Africa and Central America, and spent three years working with NGOs in southern Mexico.

Sarah graduated from Wellesley College with a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and enjoys lecturing at the school’s Albright Institute for Global Affairs. She holds a master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Kanykey Orozbaeva

Development Coordination Officer, Data management and Results monitoring, United Nations System in the Kyrgyz Republic

Kanykey Orozbaeva works as a Data Management and Results Monitoring/Reporting Officer in the Resident Coordinator Office. Prior to this, she was the Adviser on Sustainable and Inclusive Economic Growth and PAGE National Coordinator at UNDP Kyrgyzstan, and SDGs-Government liaison to the UN Country Team in Kyrgyzstan.

Kanykey has been serving the National Statistical Committee of Kyrgyzstan in different capacities for the past 7 years and as a member of global and regional international platforms represents Central Asian region at various forums, including the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG indicators (IAEG-SDGs), Steering Group of the Conference of European Statisticians on statistics of SDGs and many others.

Kanykey holds a Bachelor of Business degree from the American University in Central Asia, Master of Business degree from the Academy of Management under the President of the Kyrgyzstan and University degree in Law, Kyrgyz-Russian University.

Stephen Penneck

President-elect, International Statistical Institute

Stephen Penneck is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and chairs the ISI’s Advisory Board on Ethics. He retired in 2012 as Director General at the UK’s Office for National Statistics. He was President of the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) from 2011 to 2013. Stephen is a Chartered Statistician and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society where he is Honorary Officer for Official Statistics. Since retirement, Stephen has published articles and given lectures on a range of topics in official statistics including economic statistics, open data, and governance, trust and ethics. He has contributed to ISI workshops and regional conferences in Korea, Cameroon and Indonesia and has organised sessions at recent IAOS conferences and World Statistics Congresses on the work of the Ethics Committee; implementing the UN Fundamental Principles in developing countries; and Ethics and Big Data. Stephen has had wide experience as a government statistician in the UK, initially in economic statistics, and then in national accounts, statistical governance, surveys and methodology.

Fernando Perini

Regional Director, Latin America and the Caribbean

Fernando joined the International Development Research Center (IDRC) in 2007, where he pioneered work on open data and big data with leading regional and local partners committed to the creation of locally-driven and sustainable data ecosystems in developing countries. This includes several global initiatives on open data, big data, feminist open government, and artificial intelligence for development. In the past years, he coordinated the Open Data for Development (OD4D) Network – an initiative hosted at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and co-funded by the Global Affairs Canada and Hewlett Foundation. He has served in the organizing committee of the past three editions of the International Open Data Conference (IODC), helping to coordinate a collaborative global open data roadmap and co-edited a recent publication on the State of Open Data. Fernando has extensive international experience as a researcher, consultant, and lecturer, and holds a PhD from the University of Sussex (Science Policy Research Unit) in the management of technology and innovation.

Jake Porway

Founder and Executive Director, DataKind

A pioneer of the Data for Good movement, Jake Porway is an expert in data and technology. At DataKind, a global nonprofit dedicated to using data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the service of humanity, he works alongside nonprofits to drive social change with the power of data science since 2011. He worked as a data scientist for The New York Times R&D Lab and was a research scientist studying machine learning and probabilistic modeling tasks with NASA, Office of Naval Research, and other government agencies. A PopTech Social Innovation Fellow and National Geographic Emerging Explorer, Jake was also noted as one of LinkedIn’s Next Wave Top Professionals 35 & Under and his efforts have led to DataKind being named one of Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Nonprofits. Jake holds a BS in Computer Science from Columbia University and an MS and PhD in Statistics from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Jake also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the second United Nations World Data Forum.

Claire Melamed

CEO, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

Claire Melamed is the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. This growing network brings together several hundred members -- governments, private sector, and civil society -- to harness and leverage data and data technology towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. She heads a global team based in six countries. Claire serves on a number of Boards and advisory groups for institutions, including the UK’s Office of National Statistics Data Science Campus, Government of UAE’s Task Force on Global Data Commons, Overseas Development Institute’s Human Mobility Initiative, and Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s Governance Index. She was previously Managing Director of the Overseas Development Institute, and in 2014, she worked in the Office of the UN Secretary General, writing the report of the Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution, “A World That Counts”.

Nnenna Nwakanma

Chief Web Advocate, World Wide Web Foundation

Nnenna Nwakanma advocates for policy and systemic changes that are needed for meaningful internet access, open data, open government and the open web across Africa, bringing together local and international stakeholders to advance the digital agenda. She works to drive affordable internet access, data rights, digital freedom and digital responsibilities of stakeholders, sectors and actors.

She is a Diplo alumnus, an ICT4D Strategist, an expert in eParticipation and Citizen Engagement, one of the early pioneers of the Africa Data Revolution, a respected voice in the UN’s Internet Governance Forum, a pioneer and continued advisor on internet governance in Africa, and Faculty at the Schools of Internet Governance. She has over 15 years of experience working with the United Nations Systems in human rights, information society, gender, data digital equality and sustainable development.

Her career has allowed her to work closely with many civil society organisations, the African Development Bank, the Digital Solidarity Fund and UN’s Africa Information Society Initiative. Nnenna has recently co-founded The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa, and served as a board member of the Open Source Initiative. She has lived and worked in five African countries and is fluent in English, French and a number of African languages.

Nnenna also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the second United Nations World Data Forum.

Claudia Wells

Director of Data Use, Development Initiatives

Claudia Wells is the Director of Data Use at Development Initiatives (DI), an independent organisation set up to use data and information to end poverty. Claudia is currently leading on the P20 Initiative: data to leave no one behind, a programme of work focused on data to track the progress of the poorest people and ensure that no one is left behind. Claudia also leads DI work on understanding and addressing the critical barriers to data use, working closely with stakeholders to support them in their use of data and evidence as well as developing direct research and learning on data use.

Prior to joining DI, Claudia was Head of Sustainable Development Goals and Environmental Statistics at the UK Office for National Statistics where she was responsible for developing new data and analysis for a wide rage of users, from informing the everyday decisions of the public, to working across government providing robust evidence for policy makers. She is passionate about working in statistical areas that promote action on economic and social inequalities whilst also making data open and available to all.

Philipp Schönrock

Director, Cepei

Philipp Schönrock founded Cepei in 2003, a data-driven think tank, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to scale up the participation of Latin America and the Caribbean within the global development agendas. Over the past years, he has been part of numerous initiatives: he was the co-chair of Beyond 2015, and currently serves as a board member of Together 2030 and Core Women and of the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century. He is also a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the Global Partnership on Sustainable Development Data, the Programme Committee of the United Nations World Data Forum, and the SDSN Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (SDSN TReNDS). In 2018 he was a visiting Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).

Philipp also served as a member of the Programme Committee for the first and second United Nations World Data Forum.

Papa Seck

Chief Statistician, UN Women

Papa Seck leads statistics and data at UN-Women since 2009. Papa led the development of UN Women's Women Count global initiative, to improve the production and use of gender data and to help countries monitor the Sustainable Development Goals form a gender perspective and is currently leading its implementation since 2016. He also developed of the Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE) programme in 2012, in collaboration with the UN Statistics Division, resulting in innovative new standards and ways to measure asset ownership and entrepreneurship from a gender perspective. He has co-authored several editions of UN-Women’s Flagship Reports and contributed to various other research products. Prior to joining UN-Women, Papa worked was Statistics Specialist in UNDP’s Human Development Report (HDR) Office, co-authoring three global HDRs and was the co-editor of a book on Risk, Shocks and Vulnerability and their impact on human development (Palgrave McMillan 2010).

Erik Wetter

Chairman, Flowminder

Erik Wetter is co-founder of Flowminder Foundation, a non-profit organisation that since 2010 has pioneered the use of mobile data analytics for disaster response (Haiti 2010, Nepal 2015) and development applications such as disease outbreaks (cholera, malaria, Ebola) and poverty mapping in collaboration with mobile operators and partners such Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, World Bank, UNFPA, UN OCHA, and WFP. Flowminder is one of the founding partners of the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) consortium. Erik currently focuses on policy issues such as data access, governance, and sustainable business models in public-private data sharing as a member of the European Commission Expert Group on Business-to-Government (B2G) Data Sharing, as well as in working groups with the World Economic Forum, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD), and PARIS21. Erik also holds a faculty position as Assistant Professor at Stockholm School of Economics.

Roberto Zicari

Professor of Database and Information Systems (DBIS), Goethe University Frankfurt

Robert Zicari is an internationally recognized expert in the field of databases and Big Data. His interests expand to Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is the founder of the Frankfurt Big Data Lab at the Goethe University Frankfurt, and the editor of the Operational Database Management Systems, (ODBMS.org) web portal and of the ODBMS Industry Watch Blog. For the past five years, he was a visiting professor with the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology within the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley, California.