The two-day workshop on ‘Data Forum – 2024’organized successfullyin Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar 23/11/2024:The two-day workshop on ‘Data Forum-2024’organizedby NITI Aayog with the collaboration of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Government of India, and World Bank with support of the Department of Planning and Convergence, Government of Odisha on 21-22 November, has been concluded successfully on Friday afternoon,  in Bhubaneswar.

The 2nd-day session of day 2 which was held on 22^nd November, began with the activity on the subject “Leveraging frontier technology for transferring data into knowledge”. The session was chaired by Dr, SauravGarg, Secretary, MoSPI, Govt. of India. In his keynote address, Dr. Garg focused on the Strengthening of the Statistical System and Infrastructure in different states and the availability and use of data at the district level as well as at the state level. Ms. Malar Veerappan, Programme Manager of The World Bank was the moderator of the Session. In her opening remark, she highlighted “Empowering districts of the fulcrum of growth through localized data-driven decision-support system.

ShriAnubhav Singh, Chief Development Officer, Shravati, UP spoke about the present context of the Data landscape at the District level and the Challenges and Opportunities for the availability of Data. Dr.Dalip Singh, Addl. Director General, Economics Statistics Division, MoSPI highlighted “Building an Integrated System of Business Data to Monitor State and District Economic Growth Divers”.Dr. Pratyush Kumar, Co-founder, Sarvam, AI Spoke on “District as fulcrum of growth: unlocking the potential of unstructured data” whereas Dr.ManoranjanPattanayak, ED, Pricewaterhouse  Coopers presented “Estimating city-level GDP for monitoring growth in Urban areas”& Dr. AvikSarkar, Professor Indian School of Business highlighted about “Using of Alternative Big Data for Policy Decisions.”

In the afternoon, the session of the Workshop was on discussion about Data systems for achieving sustainable development goals. This session was chaired by Smt. Anu Garg, Development Commissioner & Additional Chief Secretary to Govt of Odisha was moderated by Mr. Christopher Garroway, Chief Economist, UN RCO.  Mr. Garoway spoke about Data Systems for Resilient and Sustainable Growth.

In their different presentations on this topic, Dr. SudeeptaGhosh, Social Statistics Division, MoSPI, Dr. PallaviChoudhuri, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, NCAER- National Data Innovation Centre, Mr, Rajnath Ram, Programme Director(Energy), NITI Aayog, Dr. Kamal Lochan Mishra, Executive Director, OSDMA, Govt of Odishafocused on: System of Environmental-Economic Accounting and the SDGs, ImprovingGender Outcomes through Data Driven Policymaking, Towards Sustainable Growth Using  Energy Data, Odisha: Using Data to build State resilience, strengthen disaster risk management and mitigation respectively.

In Valedictory sessions. Anna Roy, Principal Economic Advisor, NITI Aayog, Ms. Ximena V. Del Carpio, Practice Manager, Poverty & Equity Global Practice World Bank and Dr. PravakarSahoo, NITI Aayog gave their concluding remarks and said about how the outcomes of this workshop–NITI State series-2^ndwill contribute to meet the expectations of DATA FORUM 2024 which will ultimately help in development of our country as well as be valuable input for achieving the SDG goal of UN.  Ms. Shreya Dutta Mishra, Data System Specialist, World Bank coordinated conducting 1st-day and 2nd-day sessions of the  2-day programme.

It is noteworthy to mention that the inaugural event of the Workshop held on the first day i.e 21^st November, was graced by the Deputy Chief Minister, Odisha Sri K.V. Singh Deoalongwithpresence of Chief Secretary, OdishaShriManojAhuja and other dignitaries from NITI Aayog, World Bank and MoSPI. Senior officials from various states, Union Territories, various departments of the Government of India, academicians, etc. in the workshop participated in the two-day program.