The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) will hold the National Conference of Data Producers and Users - National Sovereignty in Geosciences, Statistics and Data: risks and opportunities for Brazil in the Digital Era, between July 29 and August 2, at UERJ, Maracanã Campus.

This initiative is part of the series of historical IBGE conferences such as CONFEST/CONFEGE, which aim to discuss the risks and opportunities arising from the current governance of the Digital Era, and address the consolidation of the National System of Geosciences, Statistics and Data (SINGED).

Over the course of the five-day event, more than 2,000 people from the different segments of Brazilian civil society are expected to attend, as well as more than 500 technicians and experts at the six thematic tables and 25 working groups.

The president of the Institute, Marcio Pochmann, emphasized that “ in the middle of a transition to the Digital Era, the IBGE is opening itself up in a democratic, transparent and participatory way to debate with Brazilian society, especially the agents who produce and use data, the sovereign construction of the National System of Geosciences, Statistics and Data (SINGED)”.

Pochmann also highlighted the process up to this event and the collective movement of the IBGE civil servants to get to the great National Conference, with intense preparation over the last 10 months. “Through a series of internal dialogues, the institution promoted an important process of listening to all the civil servants, managers, coordinators, superintendents and directors. As a result, it became possible to collectively construct both the institutional guidelines for the IBGE 90 years project at the first national meeting of the IBGE civil servants in 2023 and at the second meeting in 2024, the conceptual and operational bases of SINGED were established, which will be presented at the National Conference for discussion with the scientific and academic communities,” said the IBGE president.

The executive director, Flavia Vinhaes, explained that “this conference is being held at an opportune moment, right after a series of dialogues that have taken place at the Casa with the civil servants and are now opening up to dialogue with the producers and users of the data, who come from different institutions. We are welcoming organized society and institutions to map out the next steps towards a major effort to incorporate new technologies into our surveys”.

Following the same line of thought, the director of Geosciences at the IBGE, Ivone Lopes Baptista, stressed that “the Conference will be an opportunity to further the debate with partner institutions, researchers, public managers and representatives of society on the challenges of producing statistics and geoinformation with quality and relevance. It also represents an important moment for the strengthening of inter-institutional collaboration to the current challenges and opportunities in the incorporation of constant technological innovations and the processing of large volumes of data”.

The Director of Information Technology, Marcos Mazzoni, explained the main topics of this Conference. “We are living in an important moment of the discussion of the national data infrastructure, of which the IBGE must be a strategic and structuring part. We want to develop this relationship with our government partners so that we have a great information foundation, allowing us to use administrative data automatically, interacting with the systems and surveys of the IBGE. There is also a discussion about the sovereignty of data, as it becomes an extremely important tool in relations among countries, governments and institutions. The IBGE cannot be left out of this debate,” said Mazzoni.

The coordinator of the Center for Information Documentation and Dissemination/Coordination of Social Communication, Daniel Castro, pointed out that “the Conference represents an excellent opportunity to hold a debate that is doubly crucial for the IBGE: data sovereignty and the centrality of the Institute in the National Coordination of Statistics, Geosciences and Data, with SINGED. Throughout the five days, the IBGE will gather hundreds of specialists and technicians in different areas involved in all aspects of the Digital Era, with particular attention to artificial intelligence and the technologies involved in the production and use of data in Brazil and around the world. With the participation of international exponents from the big data and network companies, the bigtechs, the government, the academia and civil society, the IBGE will reaffirm its commitment to the most accurate portrait of the Brazilian reality, and its challenges and opportunities in the face of the Digital Era”.

Paulo Jannuzzi, the general coordinator of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, explained that “this meeting has a special relevance because it is a return to the dialogue between the IBGE and society and its various segments and users of the statistical and geographic information produced by the Institute. It will give us elements to reconsider and plan the National Sovereignty in Geoscience, Statistics and Data (SINGED). The 21st century is the century of the prevalence of digital data, in its different formats in the form of big data, social media, information from e-commerce transactions, collaborative platforms, a universe of data”.

Digital Era Conference

Service: National Conference of Data Producers and Users
Venue: State University of Rio de Janeiro - UERJ
Date: July 29 - August 02 2024
Time: 8 am to 6 pm
Registration: IBGE Virtual Shop (loja.ibge.gov.br)

Accreditation for the press by email comunica@ibge.gov.br