Doha, Qatar: The Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) is organising a virtual workshop on data visualisation on 5 and 6 June 2023, as part of its constant endeavor to modernise data dissemination processes and provide easy access to users, especially policy and decision makers, in order to facilitate their work and help them make informed decisions based on evidence.
This field has become one of the most sought-after fields in data science in general and official statistics in particular. It is also considered one of the powerful and influential tools that enable citizens to understand complex information, and help them make decisions that affect their daily lives.
It should be noted that the demand for advanced skills in many fields of data science and statistics, and their geospatial correlations is constantly increasing. There is no doubt that data visualisation has become a visual language that should be generalised, used and applied whenever possible, because it has the ability to show simplified form and meaning beyond numbers.
Data visualisation also highlights the multiple relationships between different phenomena. The importance of visualization stems from the fact that it provides insight into societal patterns and explores new ways to understand and interpret data. It also contributes to enhancing confidence in the official statistics produced by the PSA, and enables the user to track the progress made in national development strategies in an easy and simple way.
The workshop aims to shed light on the importance of data visualization for decision-making in various societal and development fields, and to provide guidance to participants on how to professionally prepare products in this field in a way related to the interests of decision-makers in accordance with the proposed framework for this work, and to make visual data and products available and widely usable.
This workshop is expected to contribute to a better understanding of the advantages of data visualisation in decision-making, identifying its multiple forms and acquiring the skills necessary to produce visual outputs, especially identifying the commercial apps used to produce high value outputs. The workshop participants will be asked to produce visual outputs in various fields such as education, health, labor, environment, social protection, infrastructure, trade, insurance, spending and others.
Among the participants in this workshop are representatives of relevant ministries and government agencies working in statistics and IT, especially data users from various government agencies, research centers and academia. There are also a number of local and international experts who will share their expertise in this field, led by SDG Today, ESCWA, Qatar Computing Research Institute, Northwestern University and Microsoft, as well as a number of PSA experts.
On this occasion, HE Dr. Saleh M. Al-Nabit, President of the Planning and Statistics Authority, stressed the importance of data visualization in the use and understanding of data, and in demonstrating its actual value. He added that the PSA will increase its efforts to produce various types of data visualisation to understand and visualize all economic, social and environmental phenomena whenever possible.
He concluded by extending thanks to ministries, government agencies, research centers and universities for their participation, and also thanked experts from all participating entities for their valuable contributions and support to the Planning and Statistics Authority. His Excellency stressed that the efforts of the PSA in this field will continue to reach statistical outputs based on data visualisation in all PSA platforms and website.
