WeNet at the National Statistics Conference
On 30 November and 1 December 2021, the fourteenth edition of the National Statistical Conference was held under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.
The most important appointment for official statistics in Italy brings together every two years the players of the National Statistical System (ISTAT) and data users to discuss the most relevant issues for the growth of the country’s system.
In this important context, Prof. Ivano Bison, a member of the University of Trento team involved in WeNet, was also invited to give a talk entitled “Citizen Science: a platform for accessing sensors from mobile devices”.
The talk focused on the observation that the advent of smartphones is changing the way we do research and opened the door to a new generation of tools for measuring social phenomena. With new functionalities, one can capture information about the surroundings, interactions, behaviours, and lifestyles that characterise a particular population sample. However, in this new and stimulating scenario new and more complex challenges arise for researchers, not only technological and methodological, but also pertaining to privacy, to the ethical dimension and, above all, the question on how to foster the active collaboration of citizens as producers of data. A large part of the talk was devoted to presenting the WeNet project and the iLog app as concrete examples of technology and field applications of these tools, and in particular the cognitive potential that the new tools offer in the study of human behaviour and diversity.
WATCH THE VIDEO RECORDING OF THE TALK HERE BELOW (IN ITALIAN)
As the main meeting and sharing place for the different actors in ISTAT, the National Statistical Conference offers an opportunity for data producers and users to discuss the role and development prospects of official statistics. At the core of the work, the dominant topics in the public debate related to post-pandemic recovery, sustainability, inclusion and the role of statistics as an essential and indispensable information backbone for policy making and monitoring their effectiveness.
In addition to the plenary sessions, parallel sessions were held to develop the scientific programme, touching upon digital transition, the Sistan (Italian statistical system) objective, environment and sustainability, measures of the economy and society perspectives.
For more information: https://14conferenza.istat.it/
