Africa-Press – Lesotho. Botswana and two other African countries, yet to be disclosed, have been chosen by the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data to bid to host the Global Data Festival to be held in 2025.
Winning the bid to host the Data Festival would see Botswana welcome over 700 partners from the entire global partnership network who are seeking to drive positive change using data and artificial intelligence (AI) in their businesses.
The Data Festival, a premium event held bi-annually, also aims to strengthen data communities and collective ability to unlock the value of data for all towards achieving the Agenda 2030.
In an interview, Statistics Botswana statistician general, Dr Burton Mguni said winning the bid and subsequently hosting the Data Festival would change views around use of data using modern methods and big data and artificial intelligence.
“With over 700 delegates presenting a whole show about data, we cannot minimise on the potential spinoffs from hosting the Data Festival.
As a country we will also expect exposure in terms of putting Botswana on the global map and expect tourism benefits as well as investments. Therefore we will ensure that this happens,” Dr Mguni said.
For his part, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data senior programmes director, Mr Davis Adieno, said Botswana was chosen along with 10 other African countries to host the festival.
“The number was reduced to five countries and eventually scaled down to three. Two other countries chosen to bid to host festival will be announced in November,” Mr Adieno said.
He explained that planning for the Data Festival was done a year in advance and preparations were ongoing. “Botswana is one of the countries considered and a very strong contender to host the data festival in 2025,” he said.
Mr Adieno, who is in the country for the bid preparations, said while in Gaborone they would engage different stakeholders, including primary hosts, Statistics Botswana.
He said a National Task Team would be established comprising representatives from finance, tourism and environment, foreign affairs ministries and all other stakeholders, including private sectors and civil societies to assist in organising the event.
“We will visit all the institutions to understand the landscape of data users and producers, visit venues of potential hosts and later attend the main event as well as Data Festival gala,” he said.
He added that from Botswana, they would also visit the other two countries to carry out the same exercise and later invite all three countries to formally bid for the premium event.
Again, he said a panel, which would include both Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data secretariat members and external members, would be set up to review the applications objectively.
“The country that will be successful will be announced during this year’s Data Festival in Uruguay in November,” he said. Further, he said hosting the Data Festival came with not only national benefits, but regional and global.
At national level, the festival is expected to raise the profile of data among key participating stakeholders in a country and also strengthen its eco-system on data. It further enhances collaborations around data and statistics within a country.
“Another benefit is that hosting the festival will raise the profile of data among politicians which will eventually attract investment opportunities in data and statistics in order to track and monitor,” Mr Adieno said.
Regionally, he said hosting the event in Africa would be a great fit to raise a country’s profile, particularly Botswana as a data leader in technology, innovation and partnership.
“With this, there will be increased interest for funders, partnerships and investors who will be coming to find innovations in Botswana which is what Global Partnership wants to achieve,” he said.
At global level, he said the host country’s profile would further enjoy worldwide recognition given the number of international partners participating in the event.
“When people come in from across the globe, there will be some element of tourism.
We have also observed that from this festival, private sector companies suddenly have interest in setting up offices in such host countries and there is so much investment that come with hosting the festival,” she said, adding the data festival was also an opportunity for Botswana to market herself as a global brand.
Meanwhile, the first data festival was held in Bristol, UK in 2018 and the second one will be in Uruguay, Latin America in November this year. The 2020 festival was not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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