"Hands On Data" Uruguay 2020
Call intended for public agency technical teams interested in applying data science to public policies
Good design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of public policies can benefit from the appropriate use of data science techniques applied on big data. Fraud detection, early warning systems, real-time process monitoring and sorting of beneficiaries to improve social program targeting, are a few of the recurring challenges to public policy-making that can be addressed through the use of modern machine learning and AI techniques.
While an increasingly dynamic private sector makes very intensive use of all the data sources at its disposal, governments are yet to exploit the opportunities to extract valuable information from the data they produce or manage. This difference is due to several barriers to the strategic use of data in public policy-making. In order to reduce these barriers and boost the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques by governments, CAF, AGESIC and ICT4V invite any and all Uruguayan government agencies to participate in the "Hands on Data" initiative. Hand on Data promotes the collaboration between public officials and data scientists to provide mentoring and technical assistance for the joint production of prototypes that use big data and address specific public policy needs in the following areas:
- Agriculture and Livestock
- Cybersecurity
- Education
- Energy and Environment
- Spatial Data Infrastructure
- Logistics and Transport
- Health
Interested officials or teams should apply to this call by completing this online form by Friday, February 14, 2020. Applicants must describe:
- The problem to be solved
- The available data types
- The structure of the team of officials to participate in Hands on Data
A jury comprised of representatives of the organizing institutions will select up to 6 projects, which will participate in the Hands on Data workshop and receive a two-month technical assistance program from a group of data science consultants, who will guide the teams through the development of algorithms that address the public policy problem of interest.