The Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) participates in the celebration of the 31st National Statistics Month (NSM) this October 2020. The pandemic did not hinder the institute from conducting different activities similar to previous years that promote, enhance, and instill awareness and appreciation on the importance and value of statistics with the theme “Bridging Digital Gaps: Making Information Available To All”.
For three consecutive Mondays of the month starting October 12th, INSTAT provided Free Statistical Consulting Services through the initiative of the institute’s Statistical Consulting Group (SCG) headed by the SCG Manager, Prof. Mara Sherlin D. Talento. The whole INSTAT faculty rendered their services and consultations for free via Zoom. The institute had aided almost 30 UPLB undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and researchers with their statistical methodology and analysis on their respective theses, dissertations, and research studies.
Over the month-long NSM celebration, the World’s Statistics Day was observed last October 20. In support of this celebration, a Facebook display photo frame was created and was mass-promoted by the faculty and students of the institute.
To conclude the whole-month celebration, INSTAT together with the International Statistics Institute Young Statisticians Committee (YS-ISI) and Analytical Center by Moscow City Government conducted a 2-day webinar-workshop entitled, “Data Science for Official Statistics using R” last 28-29 October 2020 via Zoom. The webinar-workshop aims to help young and local statisticians to solve case problems and make short presentations of the results using R through accessing open data from various databases such as World Bank, Eurostat, Rostat, among others.
Almost 250 registrants from various countries namely, Benin, Brazil, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, and the United States of America had pre-registered but the organizing committee only selected 70 participants ensuring equal distribution among countries and prioritizing the government workers and researchers.
Dr. Prof. Elena Zarova, an ISI Council Member, Doctor of Econometrics, Professor of Statistics, Honored Scientists of Russian Federation, Chief Scientific Adviser in Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and Deputy Head of Analytical Center by Moscow City Government, was the resource person of the webinar-workshop. Her colleague, Dr. Maria Frolova, a World Bank consultant, FrolovaEDU director, methodologist and specialist of Analytical Center by Moscow City Government, moderated the webinar. On the first day, an intensive lecture on the application of data science in generating official statistics was presented to the participants. On the second day, Ms. Elvira Dubravsky, a chief specialist of Analytical Center by Moscow City Government, provided a quick recap and discussed some of her works. Moreover, an invited guest speaker in the person of Dr. Sergey Musikhin, the Department Head in the Analytical Center by Moscow City Government and an ISI Regular member, also shared his expertise during the workshop.
The event was indeed successful as the participants signed off with new learnings and additional techniques on how to analyze data to be used on official statistics. A warm congratulations and appreciation to everyone who participated in the webinar most especially to YS-ISI headed by the Chair, Prof. Mara Sherlin D. Talento and INSTAT Extension Committee headed by Prof. Ramoncito G. Cambel for working hand in hand to effectively deliver the event virtually. [Lysette C. Aguila]
