Google announces ‘Dataset Search’ to help scientists and journalists tell stories

“The approach is based on an open-source standard laid out by the collaborative data community Schema and asks data providers to include information on who created the dataset, how it was collected, when it was published and under what terms the data can be used.”

https://toolbox.google.com/datasetsearch

Tech Crunch

Don’t forget people in the use of big data for development

“Solutions enabled by big data often bolster those who are already empowered rather than vulnerable people — largely because the power to derive value from the data tends to be concentrated in the hands of a few.”

Nature – International Journal of Science

Op-Ed: We Gave Corporations Our Data. Now They’re Deciding How AI Will Affect Our Future

“The ethical use of AI is a matter of public discourse but Google (and others) seems unfazed by the potential dark side of their products and practices. We know this because they keep pressing forward to implement their visions of the future – visions they may not necessarily see a need to reveal to the public.”

Futurism

Facebook building its first Asia data centre in Singapore

“To be operational in 2022, the new facility will span 11 storeys and see the social media company invest S$1.4 billion (US$1.02 billion) in the country.”

ZDNet

ATD Summit Helps Colleges Use Data for Student Success

“To avoid data “fumbles,” Stout said institutions should place student voices into the data, focus on facilitating data sharing, equip data teams with a faculty voice and also bring in “special teams” of external and internal partners to help get involved in data work on campus.”

DIVERSE

Blockchain technology: Are Kenya’s land registries ready?

“Ultimately, the success of such an initiative will hang around the availability of sufficient technical capacity and institutional integrity. We must have enough officers trained in the technical and policy management of digital data. We must also inculcate a proprietary institutional culture so that all officers in Survey of Kenya and the land registries begin to view and treat land records as important and sacrosanct.”

Nation Daily

How Rwanda became the first African country with an electronic procurement system

“Rwanda decided to develop the Rwanda e-GP system called UMUCYO, which means “Transparency” in the local language. UMUCYO, a web-based e-Procurement system, was developed as part of a World Bank-funded Public-Sector Reform Program-for-Results.”

The New Times

Kofi Annan and the Transition to Sustainable Development Goals

“Highlighting the importance of data to ending malnutrition in Africa, Annan continued to foster and promote the development of new tools that facilitate integrated SDG implementation and shift development paradigms. Similarly, on finance, mobilizing the private sector and “shifting the trillions” requires actors to be aligned with the spirit and principles of the 2030 Agenda.”

IISD

Study sheds light on varied nature of hepatitis C infections in Mena

“Our study reveals quite serious limitations with many of the hepatitis C systematic reviews reporting data on the Mena region. We believe that in order to achieve the goal of HCV infection elimination by 2030, up-to-date, good quality data that focuses precisely on at-risk populations is needed in order to help policy makers plan micro-elimination strategies in Mena, which our study will certainly help achieve.”

Gulf Times

Foundational Research in Integrated Building - Internet of Things (IoT) Data Standards

“In this report, we propose a strategy and preliminary framework for building level IoT semantic models and open data strategies,” said Dr. Pishdad-Bozorgi. “Semantic models, which, among other things, attach a fundamental and unambiguous description including spatial context to the data and their interconnection, are critical to fostering data interoperability between building systems,” she added.”

Georgia Tech

Global drone data services and analytics market generated $3,054.9 million in 2017, and the market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 53.9% during 2018-2023

“There are many research and development organizations that are continuously putting their efforts in developing efficient drone data services and analytics solutions. The global drone data services and analytics market is expected to show robust growth rate due to increasing usage across commercial industries.”

Report Linker

Algorithmic impact assessments: A practical framework for public agency Accountability

“Researchers, advocates, and policymakers are debating when and where automated decision systems are appropriate, including whether they are appropriate at all in particularly sensitive domains.7 Questions are being raised about how to fully assess the short and long term impacts of these systems, whose interests they serve, and if they are sufficiently sophisticated to contend with complex social and historical contexts. These questions are essential, and developing strong answers has been hampered.”

AINOW

Data Scientist Code of Ethics Community Principles on Ethical Data Practices

“These principles will provide academia, industry, and individual data scientists a common set of guidelines for driving the development of standards, curriculums, and best practices for the ethical use and sharing of data, ultimately advancing the responsible and ethical use of data as a collective force for good.”

DataPractices

Second UN World Data Forum

“The UN World Data Forum 2018 will be hosted by Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, UAE, with support from the Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, under the guidance of the United Nations Statistical Commission and the High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity-Building for Statistics for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

22-24 October 2018 Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Seminar 'Methods for Big Data in Official Statistics'          

 “This seminar brings together academics and scientists of different disciplines to find ways to deal with these new data and tackle methodological challenges. The aim of the seminar is to exchange knowledge and to stimulate research on the use of big data for statistical estimates with validated and reproducible methods.”  

4-5 October

Heerlen

Netherlands

CESS 2018 - Conference for European Statistics Stakeholders Eurostat

“Its aim is to share recent developments and innovative solutions for reflecting and explaining complex economic and social phenomena with European statistics and to discuss challenges associated with their production and use. The Conference will be organised according to three thematic blocks - Statistics, Science and Society.”

18-19 October

Bamberg (DE)    

BigSurv18 - Big Data meets Survey Science                          

“Presentations and short courses will cover tools and approaches for understanding the role and potential of Big Data to replace or complement some traditional data collections or to provide new kinds of information that will improve data quality and increase their utility.”

25-27 October 2018

Barcelona Spain