Statistical community needs to embrace digital revolution
KUALA LUMPUR: Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali has called on the statistical community to embrace the potential of the digital revolution and fully-utilised opportunities to further strengthen and enhance the national statistical system.
He said the statistical community has to adapt to the datadriven culture and embrace the evolution of data science.
“Improved data sources, sound statistical methods, new technologies and strengthened statistical systems enable better decisions that will eventually result in better lives for all of us,” he said in his keynote address at the Sixth Malaysia Statistic Conference (MyStats 2018) yesterday.
His speech was read by the Ministry of Economic Affairs Secretary-General Datuk Saiful Anuar Lebai Hussen.
Azmin said data is the lifeblood of decision-making and the raw material for accountability, and official statistics help decision makers develop informed policies that would impact the lives of millions.
“Statistics must serve the needs of the government for efficient administration and management, as well as for longer-term policy making.
“They must also serve the needs of the people to monitor the activities of the government and the changes to public well-being,” he said.
Azmin added that the country was in need of data scientists to analyse and mine data from a range of sources to unlock valuable and predictive insight.
Statistics Department Chief Statistician Datuk Sri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) had stated that the country needed 15,000 data scientists and big data specialists by 2020.
“To cater to the demand for data science professionals, many public and private higher education institutions in Malaysia took a step forward by embedding analytics and upgrading their syllabus to produce data scientists to meet this future need,” he said.
Mohd Uzir said data science was the process of finding, developing and communicating actionable information that stemmed from multiple sources, while data analytics examined large amounts of data to uncover hidden patterns, correlations and other insights.
“With faster calculation techniques and machine learning, it is now possible to analyse what we are unsure of and whatever that is missing which allows users to find gaps in the available information,” he said.
The chief statistician said big data and other innovative data- driven approaches have created better opportunities for evidence-informed decision making. — Bernama