The European Comission’s Eurostat conference 'SmartStatistics4SmartCities' was held in Greece on 5-6 October. The aim was to raise awareness about the importance of building sustainable partnerships between official statistics, municipalities, academic institutions, citizens and businesses. Among the invited speakers were PASCAL Associate Ilpo Laitinen and Konstantinos Ampountolas from the UBDC, University of Glagow.

About the Conference

Increasingly, developments in Smart Cities and Official Statistics follow independent parallel paths despite their common basic ingredient which is ‘data’, let it be open data, big data, smart data, linked data.... but in essence.... data.

The modest aim of this conference was to raise awareness about the importance of building sustainable partnerships between official statistics, municipalities, academic institutions, citizens and businesses. Only then we can maximize the potential of data analytics for informed policy decisions on cities and, for the wellbeing of the people living, working and / or visiting them, and for the operation of the businesses with activity in and with them.

Smart Statistics can be seen as the future extended role of Official Statistics in a world impregnated with smart technologies. Smart technologies involve real-time, automated, interactive technologies that optimize the physical operation of appliances and consumer devices. Statistics themselves would then be transformed into a smart technology embedded in smart systems that would transform "data" to "information".

The topics addressed during the International Conference on SmartStatistics4SmartCities included:

• Examples of using IoT, open data, and big data in a number of cities (Athens, Den Hague, Helsinki, Heraklion, Rome, Trikala);
• Innovative data analytics applications and tools for urban mobility, tourism, tracking of ships, health, etc.;
• Developments in European City Statistics;
• An introduction to Trusted Smart Statistics;
• Best practices in developing urban data centers, functional and innovative cities, models of co-creation and digitalization, etc.;
• Cross-cutting issues like standards for smart and sustainable cities, and ways for succeeding the smart city innovation & digital disruption journey;
• Challenges in using Artificial Intelligence, big data and open algorithms for human development.

Futher details: http://www.statistics.gr/event/smart-statistics/