International stats add up for KL congress as government gets behind big data

The World Statistics Congress is returning to South East Asia after 40 years, and will be hosted at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre 18-23 August. The 62nd ISI (International Statistical Institute) World Statistics Congress 2019 (ISI WSC 2019) is expected to bring 2,500 delegates from the industry, academia and policy-makers from more than 130 countries to exchange and explore new ideas in statistics and network, with over 1,200 papersbeing presented over the five days. The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir Bin Mohamad, will give the keynote address,reflecting the growing importance of statistics in an increasingly digital and data driven world. Elaborating on the congress, Chief Statistician, Department of Statistics Malaysia and Chairman ofNational Organising Committee of ISI WSC 2019, YBhg Dato’ Sri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin (pictured), said: “We are very excited that the congress is almost upon us. Everything starts withstatistics, data can change trends and with good facts and figures, we can change imbalances andhelp develop government policies to benefit the people now and in the future. This has been fiveyears in the making and is a huge milestone in our mission to elevate and develop Malaysia’s statistics industry. Anyone interested in attending can register at www.isi2019.org. In conjunction with ISI WSC 2019’s theme of ‘Come, Connect and Create’ a number of excitingsocial programmes are also being organised to increase public participation and create awarenessabout the importance of statistics and data in today’s digital world. The congress will be kicking offwith the World Stats (WSC) Run 2019 at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, 18 August. The congress’s subsequent destination, Amsterdam, Netherlands, is planning to emulate a similarpublic event and will create a bike ride to celebrate the hosting there. Dato’ Sri Dr Mohd Uzir added: “By hosting this congress in Malaysia, we can bring the localstatistics industry to a new level by showcasing how important accurate facts and figures can be toour society. While the government and the business community use statistics all the time, what wereally want is the people of Malaysia to embrace data too, benefiting their daily lives and well-being. We truly believe statistics is an important tool to increase citizen participation in publicpolicy, which will help the country progress in a very open and transparent way.” The KL Convention Centre’s General Manager, Alan Pryor, said is was an honour to host the ISIWSC 2019. “We pride ourselves on being the ‘People’s Centre’ connecting the world’s leadingexperts with Malaysians, and ISI WSC 2019 perfectly fits with this, as it will create a lasting legacyfor the country.”