New Delhi: The rapid advancements in technology have given rise to non-conventional data sources, offering new opportunities for data-driven decision-making. The non-conventional data sources come from earth observation (satellite images); Mobile telecommunications (call records); social networks (sentiment analysis), and citizen-generated data (civil society data).
Many of these are considered big data, large volumes of unstructured information that require new capacities for their analysis. The non-conventional data sources become an opportunity to complement the existing official data available with the statistical community.
In recent years there has been a need for better convergence of data arising from these two types of sources, conventional and non-conventional. Discussions about what official statistics are currently measuring and the types of data being used for these measurements have been taking place at the Statistical Institutions of different countries. The time is thus opportune to bring the relevant stakeholders at one platform and ponder upon the right set of frameworks, and systems to confluence the non-conventional data with the conventional data in official statistics.
The event congregates domain experts, policymakers, data scientists, and statisticians to discuss opportunities, challenges, and strategies for supplementing alternative data sources with the conventional data, thereby enhancing the scope, accuracy, and timeliness of official statistics. The panelists of the technical session will delve into various emerging data sources, their features- structural and transactional, and possibility of their integration with the conventional datasets.
The Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI) is organizing a brainstorming session on Leveraging Non-Conventional Data Sources for Official Statistics on 20 March, 2025 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The session aims to deliberate upon the ways and means of using the non-conventional data along with the conventional data generated through the censuses, surveys, and administrative records.
The keynote on the brainstorming session will be delivered by Kris Gopalkrishnan, one of the co-founders of Infosys, recognized as a global business and technology thought leader. Shri Gopalakrishnan serves on the Board of Governors of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), is the Chairman, The Council, IISc Bangalore, and is the Chairman, Board of Governors of IIIT, Bangalore.
In addition, the brainstorming session would be addressed by Rana Hasan, Regional Lead Economist, South Asia, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Shombi Sharp, UN Resident Coordinator (UNRC), and Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation.
The panelists of the technical sessions are the representatives from UN agencies, Governments and Private Institutions, namely, Survey of India (Department of Science & Technology), National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC: Department of Space), UIDAI (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology), IIT, Kanpur, World Bank, IDinsight, GDi, and Great Lakes Institute of Management.
The event is likely to be attended by the representatives of the central Ministries/Departments, UN agencies, Think Tanks, Independent organisations, and Universities and research institutions.
The outcomes of the brainstorming session are likely to be instrumental in understanding methodologies for better use of non-conventional data sources, as also in evolving an institutional arrangement for data integration generated through the conventional and non-conventional sources.