On 18th April 2016 LIRNEasia inked its Memorandum of Understanding with UNDP on areas of cooperation for the first national summit on foresight and innovation for Sustainable Human Development titled “Visioning Sri Lanka #2030NOW”. The summit will be held in Colombo from 24-25th May 2016. In addition to LIRNEasia and UNDP, other core partners for this two day conference include The Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs, Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (COSTI) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Research, the United Nations Global Compact Network of Sri Lanka, Sarvodaya, and the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. Collectively the partners will work towards mainstreaming the use of foresight and facilitating innovation in Sri Lanka so as to successfully implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
LIRNEasia will help to develop the direction and outcomes of the conference and facilitate the discussion on improving the use of data and particularly big data in both monitoring as well as achieving the sustainable development goals.
In my comments at the press conference to inaugurate the launch of this multi-partner exercise I highlighted our ongoing work in developing insights using big data to facilitate bringing about inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities, which is also one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 11). I went to highlight a vision of how Sri Lanka could become an exemplar in the region of innovation in using data and even big data. The Department of Census and Statistics of Sri Lanka is well respected and we have been engaging with them on Big Data since 2015 when on their invitation we conducted a colloquium on big data for their senior staff at their premises.
Above photo courtesy of UNDP Sri Lanka. More photos from the event available HERE.
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