Tom Smith: Data Science for Public Good

Tom's presentation centred on the new data science campus and the role it plays in using data analysis to grow the economy. He includes examples of their work and a call to arms for anyone using ons data to get in touch. This deck supports the talk Tom gave at Swirrl's 2017 data conference. To see this, and other, talks from the day head to http://power-of-data-2017.swirrl.com/

Transcript

1. ONS Data Science Campus SYG Campws Gwyddor Data Tom Smith MD, Data Science Campus @_datasmith
2. Economy GDP Inflation Labour market People Population Census Incomes The world Trade Sustainable Development
3. “Although better use of [data] has the potential to transform the provision of economic statistics, ONS will need to build up its capability to handle such data. This will take some time and will require not only recruitment of a cadre of data scientists but also active learning and experimentation. That can be facilitated through collaboration with relevant partners – in academia, the private and public sectors, and internationally.” Independent Review of Economic Statistics Professor Sir Charles Bean, 2016, p.11 The Elvetham, Hampshire
4. London Transport workers manually examine over 4 million tickets to identify most and least popular routes, March 1939 Gerry Cranham/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images “The 21st Century has brought new challenges in the analysis of data, and it is increasingly apparent that solutions to these are both statistical and computational. This has led to a great demand for people both in industry and in research who are able to draw upon the mathematics of both computation and probability to make sense of the large amounts of data that are collected in order to solve major problems. Data science is an interdisciplinary response to this demand” - University of Warwick
5. “The 21st Century has brought new challenges in the analysis of data, and it is increasingly apparent that solutions to these are both statistical and computational. This has led to a great demand for people both in industry and in research who are able to draw upon the mathematics of both computation and probability to make sense of the large amounts of data that are collected in order to solve major problems. Data science is an interdisciplinary response to this demand” - University of Warwick Transport for London 2016 pilot, assessing journeys by WiFi access
6. UKSA Chair Sir Andrew Dilnot tours the Campus with Scott Howell, Jason Ryan and Tom Smith, March 2017 Building the Data Science Campus • Funding approved in Mar 2016 • Start-up team in place in Jul 2016 • 1st Data Scientist in Aug 2016 • 1st Academic Manager in Sep 2016 • Research commenced in Sep 2016 • 1st Apprentices in Nov 2016 • 1st Business Support in Dec 2016 • MD joined in Jan 2017 • Headcount reached 26 FTE in Mar 2017 • Projected Headcount to reach 50-60 FTE by March 2018
7. Data Science Campus data scientists collaborating with colleagues at the Alan Turing Institute, Jan 2017 Data Science for Public Good Research activities commenced in September 2016 under five core themes: Economic Statistics • The Evolving Economy • UK in a Global Context Social Data • Urban and Rural • Society Sustainable Development Goals • Sustainability Six research projects are underway and two rapid prototyping data dissemination tools have been built for partners
8. Mapping urban trees Natural Capital – urban tree & foliage coverage
9. Mobile phone data and daytime population GDP and Road Traffic • Road Traffic predicts GDP by 1 quarter • Correlation 82% from 2010-Q3 until 2014-Q4 91% from 2011-Q2 until 2014-Q4
10. Mapping poverty using mobile phone and satellite data, Steele et al (Feb 2017), Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 14:127. http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/14/127/20160690
11. Growing Data Science Skills Apprenticeship in Data Analytics • Developed with ONS Learning Academy • Two-year vocational programme • 2 rounds - 280 applications, 23 apprentices (Campus, ONS and Welsh Government) MSc Data Analytics for Government • Developed with ONS Learning Academy & GSS Professional Support • Dedicated Data Science pathway • Multiple Academic partners • First intake in September 2017 Data Science Accelerator • Government Data Science Partnership with GDS and GO-Science • 3-month programme • Open to all Public Sector staff • South & West Hub @ Data Science Campus London Transport workers manually examine over 4 million tickets to identify most and least popular routes, March 1939 Gerry Cranham/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
12. ONS  Data  Science  Campus   SYG  Campws Gwyddor Data email datasciencecampus@ons.gov.uk web datasciencecampus.ons.gov.uk twitter @DataSciCampus Tom Smith @_datasmith