AWS Public Sector Blog
Author: Fernando Reis
Fernando Reis is a data scientist, an official statistician at Eurostat, and the spokesperson of the European Big Data hackathon organizer committee.
Using big data to help governments make better policy decisions
In Europe, government agencies and policy makers see the value in using new technology to unlock digital transformation and deliver better, more innovative citizen services. Using data for statistics initiatives, including open data, can help researchers produce innovative products and tools, including visualisation, to inform government officials ahead of making policy decisions that impact their citizens. When it comes to big data, policy makers need to collaborate with researchers to address issues and challenges in using these new data sources. To work toward this goal, Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, hosted its bi-annual European Big Data Hackathon.