CAF to finance projects that use data science for public policy design in Argentina

CAF-development bank of Latin America- will finance five data science projects to improve the design and implementation of public policies in Argentina.

The projects were prepared jointly between public officials and a group of data scientists working both in academia and industry, including mathematicians, physicists, biologists, physicians, statisticians, and computer scientists. The proposals were then evaluated by CAF, together with the Sadosky Foundation and the Social Program Information, Evaluation and Monitoring System (SIEMPRO), CAF’s partners in this initiative. The selected projects address the issues of labor absenteeism, school dropout, health, public transport and urban accessibility.

The proposal preparation process began at the “Hands on DATA” Workshop, held in late September at the CAF offices in Buenos Aires. Under the scientific-academic coordination of Prof. Walter Sosa Escudero, officials from the ministries of Production and Labor and from Education, the government of the city of Buenos Aires and the municipality of Córdoba participated in interdisciplinary working groups together with data scientists.

In the coming weeks, the task forces from the five chosen projects will work on developing the final prototypes, through an in-depth analysis of the data involved in each project, to then convert them into basic inputs for machine learning techniques, among other tools available today in data science. The outcome of the works that will receive funding from CAF-development bank of Latin America- will be shared with the academic and business community and government officials from various national and sub-national agencies, with the ultimate goal of improving visibility of the real possibilities of application of these modern data analysis techniques. The “Hands on DATA” project is expected to extend to other Latin American countries, using Argentina’s success story as an example.