IGF 2016 - Day 3 - Room 9 - WS68: BIG DATA AND THE ENVIRONMENT: A pathway to achieving SDG's

 

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico, from 5 to 9 December 2016. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

***

>> MODERATOR:  Good morning, everyone.  This is workshop number 68.  Our topic is focused on the Big Data Environment Pathway to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals.  So today we have several panelists and then we will break out in discussions.  So this session is organized by the Committee on ICT for United Nations, Chinese Association for Science and Technology and the CAS'GCdata.  So I would like to call Professor Zhou.

>> XIANG ZHOU:  I would like to introduce you to cost and society.  Chinese Association for Science and Technology is the largest NGO of scientific and technological persons in China.  Now, CAST has over two members.  They are closely tied with scientists and technologies.  About ten years ago CAST got status for UN, for the United Nations, so CCIT was established.  Consulting on ICT for United Nations.  We have three members.  Two are from Chinese Academy of Science and University of Telecommunication.  And society engaged IGF, engaged IGF Forum.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  I would like to call Professor Jo please.

>> XIANG ZHOU:  My name is Xiang Zhou.  I'm from the Chinese University of Science.  Currently I'm the Co‑Chair of task group for access to science and technology data for least Developing Countries.  I will give you a very brief introduction of CODATA, it's a Committee on Data for Science and Technology.  It is Interdisciplinary Committee for International Council of Science.  It was established by ICSU in 1966.  CODATA is resource for scientists and engineers with access to international data activity by fostering science and technology through developing and sharing knowledge about data and relative activity.  So in CODATA strategic plan 2013‑2015 there are three priority areas, the first is to promote open data policy and practice.  Second to advance frontiers of data science, the third is build capacity for improving skills and functioning of scenes for all of the countries established for the low and middle income countries.  So that's why the CODATA was tasked to lead this discussion with all of you here.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you very much.  Next, I wanted to introduce each of you.  You introduce yourself.  What's your name, what is your organisation?  Which country you come from.  How about you first?  Microphone.

>> ALESSANDRO FELIX MOURA:  Good morning, everyone, may name is Felix from Mexico.

>> AUDIENCE:  I'm Paula from South Africa with Women's Net.

>> AUDIENCE:  Good morning, people.  My name is Alfredo (Indiscernible) working for ISP Mexico.

>> LORI SCHULMAN:  Lori Schulman, Washington DC, USA.  I work for the International Trademarks Association.

>> AUDIENCE:  Good morning, everyone.  Elgi from Guatemala I work in national Secretariat in science and technology.

>> AUDIENCE:  Hello, everyone, Riccardo, professor of South America here from Mexico.

>> AUDIENCE:  My name is Fung from Chinese Academy of Sciences and also from Chinese Association for Science and Technology.

>> AUDIENCE:  I am from the Government of Algeria.  I'm curious to come here to learn how big data is being used or should be used to save the environment.  Thank you.

>> AUDIENCE:  My name is Loren Perseuka I work for the Organisation of Economic Development in Paris.

>> MODERATOR:  We will have some short presentations, then we will have discussions.  I think the big data issue is a new issue, but everybody is interested no matter you are Government officer, you are a research professor you are education in Universities or in private sectors, you need data.  What kind of data, how to get the data, how to use the data, and we don't want to say more about the technical issue, but we want to say more about the political issues, how to use them, how to get them how to prevent this, so a series of issues and the more interesting is where is the data and how might it contribute to the big data communities.  So I think it is most interesting for us today.  He is professor in the law school and in the university in the mainstream.

>> RICARDO ISRAEL ROBLES PELAYO:    So hello, everyone, again.  So I'm going to talk about the regulation of intellectual property and big data according to Mexican law.  I know that in Mexico their relation of intellectual property and environmental property, I'm sorry, law, there are a strong relationship so I will explain a little bit in the Mexican law in these matters.  So I am going to talk or explain the Mexican regulations regarding the Internet, the database and the big data which is the main topic.

  The most important laws that regulate Internet in Mexico are the privacy law which relates to everything with private contracts held to the Internet then we have the code of commerce that regulates everything related to commercial contracts the Internet, the Internet at evidence in commercial matters, the electronic signatures, et cetera.  Federal code of civil procedure regulates the Internet issues as evidence in civil procedural law.  Federal code of are related to payment of copyright and electronic transfer taxes.  Federal criminal code which regulates everything related to criminal law on the Internet, law of the industrial property that regulates everything to commercial, industrial or professional secrets.

This law belonged to the intellectual property law.  The federal consumer protection law which regulates everything related to misleading advertising.  Federal copyright law which regulates everything related to copyright law and database.

So as we saw in the previous slide, the specific regulation is found in the federal law of copyright which belongs to the Intellectual Property Law as the Law of the Industrial Property.  In Article 107 it says that the database for other material readable by machines or in another form that for reasons of selection and disposition of its content constitutes intellectual creation and will be protected as complications.  Such protection would not extend to the data and materials themselves.

Regarding the regulation of big data there is a federal law on protection of personal data that is in possession of individuals.  The law was enacted to protect personal data held by individuals in private companies to insure every person's right to privacy and to information of self-determination.  This law applies to everyone with exception of credit information companies and individuals who collect and store information for personal or domestic use for non‑commercial purpose or without intent to disclose such information.

So nevertheless there is not protection of big data by any law of intellectual property in Mexico since there is not a parameter to distinguish the intellectual creation contained in big data.  In Mexico the environment and Intellectual Property Laws have important relationships, so that's why the regulation of big data as a form of protection of intellectual property should be an important issue in the agenda of the Mexican Parliament.

So that's the point, that's the question that we are concerned about the big data.  We don't have enough law, we don't have enough regulation about that, so I think it's a point of discussion on this.  Thank you very much. 

(Applause)

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you very much for this important start.  Everything regarding big data, first thing we need to know.  So next speaker is Xiang Zhou.  He will give some information about the coding task rule in Developing Countries.  Coding was established in 2002 so 14 years old now.  So this is a team in the world for focus on data in Developing Countries, the only one team in the world last such a long time.

>> XIANG ZHOU:  (Speaking off microphone).  I think everybody already know me, so I'm going to talk about code data task group access to science and technology data for Developing Countries and especially the practice of our task group in recent years.  So I will skip these pages about the CODATA since I just present to you.  So CODATA group which was approved by the CODATA General Assembly in 2002 in (Indiscernible) then this have four objects.  The first one is to promote strategy, policy and institution guidelines for implementation of open data in Developing Countries, especially in low and middle income countries.

And also we provide interdisciplinary Forum for enhancing capacity building and sharing practice also for Developing Countries and the amount of our priority task is advanced data issues in Developing Countries and the last one is data reuse and repositories in support of sustainable development.  That's the objective of our task group know, or task group has 27 member from 14 countries.  I'm the Co‑Chair of the task group.

We have professor from Kenya and Dr. Tora Cohens from Brazil as the Co‑Chair of this group.  So now we have groups which relate to our objective it's called strategy and policy, capacity building and data publishing and sharing.  And we have joined for the WDS.  Over the past decades the CODATA has group has focused on promoting and enhancing the worldwide cooperation in ICTs and research data in the developing open knowledge environments for interest national science and sustainability in Developing Countries.  Of course, we have many persons from these countries.  So this is activity in recent years.  In 2011 in Mongolia we have a workshop on open data knowledge environment.  In Colombia 2013, Kenya 2014 and Mexico last year we have workshop in Mexico City on the data sharing principle requirements mentioned with cooperation of NGO.  We also have a training course in Ethiopia, Beijing this year.  This is some cases of the training workshops we held in Mongolia, North Korea and other Developing Countries.

This picture shows the training course held in Nairobi Kenya in 2014.  We have more than 16 trainers from more than ten countries.  We also have some very good experts which are dedicated to working in this work group.  She was awarded 2008 for her contribution to the scientific contribution and scientific data and service.  So we also have Paul Uhlir, he is a legal expert from U.S. and we have Daisy Selematsela.  The without come of the task force we have reached Nairobi for limitation of open data in developing countries.  This is a white paper.

We will still focus on this issue, this open data in big data world.  We also viewed online system for the geo museum which has two hundred contributors from the world.  This is the online stamp related to scientific technology.  It is opening ceremony of this geo museum.  It is the President of XO and the former President of CODATA was there.

Other work is global Chair into research data publishing and repository.  This is work to big data.  I think a person will introduce later.  Now in 2015 international call was released by the full international organisation IP and ISCA which called open data, big data world.  That rose new issue on the open access to big data, the scientific process, and that and to be sure that the country can use data for sustainable development locally and regionally.

Our task have made Action Plan for coming years, except the work introduced previously.  We also want to hold a workshop and training course in India and Madagascar this year respectfully in March and May, and we want to develop special issue which to the journal of data science that will clue the best practice and showcase of implementing open data in Developing Countries.  So that's what I would like to discuss with our colleague here in this session later.  That's it.  Thank you very much.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Thank you.  That's very good.  Thank you for the presentation and also your leadership in this task group.  So next speaker is a professor Comaso from Russia.  So he is the deputy head of the school of building informatics national research university high school of economics.  And he will talk about open data in Russia, please.

>> AUDIENCE:  Thank you.  My name is Mikhail Comaso.  I would like to tell a few words about big data and the environment actually and also what's going on in Russia in this area.  First of all, I would like to say in regarding initiative supported by the Government open data initiative.  So several years ago we hold special, we got actually special institution, special centre responsible for the open data in Russia under their analytical centre of Russian Government, and we have special open data portal as a website where we got more than 11,000 data sets already available including more than 400 data sets focused on ecology in Russia so including different roots, pollution map, some statistics and information about different types of animals and so on.

The thing is that currently we are promoting I think activities focused on implementation of those data sets, open data data sets for business purposes.  So companies, you know, using that data actually in their developing mobile applications and so on.  Last year special organisation consisted of more than hundred experts are responsible and actually advising Government on the development of Internet in Russia.

So within the Internet development institution, we got a special group focused on big data implementation, big data development.  And so several purposes actually and several main goals of that group on big data are implementation of big data in businesses, of course, and actual expending different business models based on data.  Second, introducing new services based on big data with the support from the Government as well, and third, collaboration with different stakeholders actually.  So because citizens also stakeholders, right, Civil Society stakeholders in that process because they are giving their data to the companies, to the businesses and so scientists, academia are also stakeholders research the data and recognizing in algorithm for data and analytics.

I will be happy to participate in further discussion.  Thank you very much.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you.

(Applause).

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you very much for the information.  So next I will share some information with you on data and the environment in Developing Countries.  So we would like to have background.  So since the summit in 2003 and 2004, so we focused on the bridge the digital divide, but after ten years in the geo, in the focus environment issue is 86% come from OECD companies, but for Developing Countries more than 100 companies 14%.  So this is a very big chunk.  Then we got since the seventh IGF we called worldwide awareness of the issues on data in Developing Countries and after that we have country series of workshops and we have work in Kenya, and some other countries also we have this to have, join the workshop in some special regions.

So in Nairobi sharing principles in year before last year, these organisations get together.  All of the data sharing in Developing Countries is critical issue not only data resources on political issue, human resources issue, financial support issue and so on.  So and then last year I was invited by the President of United Nations in the United Nations agriculture to continue to pay more attention about the bridge the digital divide and pay more attention about the issues in the Developing Countries.  So can go back to the presentation, please.  Okay.  Good.  So then we have this so we have to make the case study.  We set up the infrastructure for global change with data publishing reporting and sharing in the vehicle countries.

So I believe that each of you have the sheet.  You have this and if you have this one, please see the back, this one, this is the website and then some introduction and a little bit brief information about that, the website.  This is a data site for all related local environmental change, not only climate change but also human activities, population, glaciers, vegetation, all related.

So most of this is locally in the local and the regional and some in the global.  So how to make the data available to be used?  We divide the data into three kinds, one is Government data, second is research data, their one is the private commercial data.  So we focus on the research data now.

So there is a big jump between the data user and the data holders.  So the data user, they want to use, but very few people want to open the data.  They always want to take it.  But this is the problem, how to get current people to contribute their data and shareable.  So I call this one, there is like a trade.  For some users on the ground and some laws and data on the ground.  How to do that between them and there is data publishing we call the free trunk.

So come back to my career.  I don't want to see myself.  And how to publish, the data you have the original one, and then high quality.  I want to come back.  So this is, there is a Chinese history about this picture.  This is a stamp, I collect stamps, but this stamp has a story.  This is pretend to play Yu.  There is a king in China he preferred his money 300 play together so there is one gentleman and he said I can play, but actually he is not and the king said good, come on and he pay people more.  But the king died and his son preferred they play one by one and this gentleman came.  We checked the data, not a bunch of these sites give you a bunch of data sites.  No one knows what quality it is, but we have checked each site one by one make sure each data site high quality, useful.

So we have the data management policies.  We have series of policies of data submission for publish and policy.  Review policy, data quality control policy, data long‑term preservation policy, data sharing positive, and 10% policy, and this candidate from very beginning to the sharing, to the end so whole management policy to do that.

So there is some data sharing policy.  So we definitely make sure the data is the full, open, free, easily access and the interoperational data sharing oriented policy.  So this is a focus and we have four points.  One is the full, open, free, easily accessible for everyone.  So no more three clicks to gather data.  So this is very, because too many information, people download the data, click, click, click many times.  But the later, nothing.  So we don't want to do this.  So we want to use nor more.  And then free to be used to the end user subject to the citation and where you come to value‑added service so use the data services and welcome data integration data user subject to the 10% policy.  So this is data sharing policy if the user agreed to do that, whatever.

And then after the data published and the data ready, how to do this, we are local people, how to make the local data benefit for all of the world?  So there is a paper cite the as doing locally, thinking globally.  We are working with Developing Countries people, they said I never go abroad.  I don't know what the world is.  So I don't think how the world is, looks like.  So I think that's good.  So I understand.

So let's go this way.  Doing locally, networking globally and not thinking globally.  That's networking globally.  So pick this example, how you make your data into high quality review data and to be networking?  One, for example, this is a data site about the boundary.  This is a boundary where the T bird is.  We have the data centre.  Each data had D.  And then we name the data only the ID, but we link the data paper, what the data is, not only the data products, but you have the description of what the data is, how the data developed, how the quality of the data.  We call this a data paper.

Then not only the data paper, but I have the paper, so from the author that published a paper about the discovery, so how large this area is, and then what each line goes and so on.  And not only that, we put all of this general data and the general data into the Web of science.  This is another company and they make a special platform and the whole researcher papers, journals can be searchable in the Web.  We draw this and put this information in the plan.

Then not only this, this whole answer go to the research ID system, so each author of the data site is a searchable in the research ID.  And from here, and then you can ‑‑ poem use your data you can search, can find who use my data.  And where, in which, in the project that could use my data.  So you can find this information clear.

And not only there, we have the global observation system of databases.  We join this, we contribute our data.

This system.  So you can search this system more than one hundred countries and more than one hundred organisations join this system.  So you can find our data can be used in this system.  So this is the system to how to do locally networking globally.  And then we have a new journal to publish usual of the, and we call this normal data trends discovery.  We will be issued next month.  So this is an example, so we have another plan, networking plan and the implementation.  We link to this system.  We have a link.  In the next month we go to South Africa to have United Nations and first World Data Forum.  So that is the statistics Bureau so how the data linked to that.  And then we have a (Indiscernible) in Kenya.

So we could work together to discuss about the site issue.  So this is youth seminar locally in the networking globally so share the data high quality, make sure the data is original, to make the data is peer reviewed, high quality, and accessible, and useful.  Thank you very much for my presentation.  So then we will discuss, and this is a case.  This is one of the cases in Mexico, in China in Russia.  So we, now we will go back, go back to all things all of the world.  So you have discussions about the, because there are more and more platform, data platform comes more and more data, data forms come, platform comes so how it operated its platform together and the link.  What the issues are is one thing.  Second the topic is how about in the Developing Countries, what is the responsibility for the Developing Countries for the international organisations, for the industry countries, how we can work together south to south or north to south we can work better.  And what could be an Action Plan in the long term view.  So this is I think that maybe we can talk about that.  Okay.  So now we have questions.  We discuss, free to discussion.  So if you have any questions, if you have anything you want to present here, please come.  Questions?

>> AUDIENCE:  My name is Lori Schulman, I have a question, I have watched the slides and heard about the different initiatives and I certainly appreciate the comments on the state of the law and big data in Mexico.  I think that is important to particularly intellectual property owners that I represent and how we would fit into the big scheme.  But I think I'm leaving a little unclear about using the big data and helping environmental issues, are you talking about the environment of big data generally?  I'm sorry for the lack of understanding of the subject matter, but so you are talking about what we are doing globally in an environment to create open and free data?  But I guess what I missed is the relation to the Strategic Development Goals.

>> AUDIENCE:  I don't understand very well the question for me, but you are thinking about what the relation between each topic, so when I participate?  Hearing this session, I am a lawyer as a professional, so when we talk about the big data in Mexico, there is not a connection between, you know, the law in intellectual property and the big data.  So there is a big issue to discuss because in certain points there is no relationship between environments.  So to be honest, I really think that we are short in our law to regulate all of these big data information.

So when I came here, I really expected to discuss what happened in other countries, what happened around the world, how do you treat all of this kind of information regulation in this matter.  So for me, it's a very interesting thing to discuss with all of you persons in this session.

>> MODERATOR:  Because big data is not only is volume data, but also my understanding is also so many people to be involved, not only volume, not only as time series so many things, but also the people.  Many people to be involved.  The people, most of the people involved with data is local content.  Very few is global unless it's big data, but very few, but most, most of the users, contributors are local content.  But between this local content and big data community, there is a breach, we need to bridge them.  What is the bridge?  That means how do you make local data beautiful, how to networking to globally, and make network global data as big data.  And the people, how to draw in global platform and make them with local ability stronger and stronger.

So this is the main topic today in this especially in Developing Countries.  This is what we wanted to discuss this the.

>> AUDIENCE:  I work in Mexico City with a reference to spatial database, but I don't know what does it mean to get out the data?  I mean, we are in a close space, so the data is being published, but I don't see the point to somebody from Ukraine or from Paris will use my data if it's only a special reference from a specific place in Mexico City.  You know 1234 I mean I don't see the relation of the point to disclose this data if it's for local purpose.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  I respond to your situation.  Many people, millions of cases like that.  It is service for the local because there is local service it is for the local people, very useful.  So but local is useful to local not only but it is part of the global.  So this is another challenge comes.  And another could be potential contributor to the global environment.  Go ahead.

>> AUDIENCE:  I think for researchers, for example, it could be very interested knowing how in different local places they do things and how they manage to use the data and how they connect to the global data environment.  That's what I think it's interesting, not because of the places specific place, but of the methodology and the way they involve people to participate in this kind of initiatives.

>> AUDIENCE:  I just wanted to add a few things.  First of all, I would like you to pay attention to their recommendations with European Commission put on their website about collaborative economy.  On second or 1st of June this year.  I would say it's one of the first documents where definition of different let's say actors are presented, like buyer, seller, and so on if we are talking about business.  I would say it's first approach at least, you know, to what I know.  Second, I wanted to say that if ear walking about research activities as was already said, if we are talking about global solutions for, you know, for global problems, so we should analyze definitely global data.  So the problem there is who actually is going to be responsible for connecting different data sets and who is going to own the data or what about the regulations actually introduced to let's say to data management in that case.  And third, I would like to say that I always keep telling that now we have big service revolution I'm talking about not companies, Governments, other organisations using data of people, and the question there is people from one point using services but from another point using data which is used to arrange that service, and we don't have any regulations concerning that connection.  So we just take it, you know, as a tease, right, that companies can do whatever they want with the data.  If they use it anonymously, right, and so on.

And that's probably one of the topics which should be also raised while we are talking about big data and global let's say and global scale, and actually if we are talking about some Sustainable Development Goals because, you know, these goals for one point of view they are global, but from another point of you have they consist of small data sets and regulations from different countries and different regions.  That's what I wanted to add.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  So any other questions.  So my colleague from Ghana come here.  Introduce yourself.

>> WISDOM DONKOR:  Hello.  My name is Wisdom Donkor from Ghana, and I'm the technical lead person for the Ghana Open Data Initiative Project, and I also work with the regulator of ICT in Ghana.  So I'm sorry for coming in late.  What I will say is that in our part of the world, I'm talking in relation to Africa, we have so many issues that open data for that matter, big data can help us solve our problem, especially our environmental problems.  We have issues with our environment that we can leverage on open data, big data to actually solve some of our problems.

What we have been able to do in Ghana is through the Ghana Open Data Initiative Project we actually tried to open up Government and so that Government agencies will release the data that they are holding.  We believe that the data the Government is holding is for the citizens.

It's not for any particular agency to hold the data.  They have to release the data so that citizens can actually use this data to critique whatever the Government is doing and also to inform policy makers in their decision making and all of that.  What we have been, what we have achieved so far is that we have a policy in place and the poll I of setting up national infrastructure, so we have a national infrastructure in place which is the national data centre and the data centre, what we have done is we have been able to connect or we have been able to lay a fiber cable throughout the whole country, Ghana, connecting all Government agencies onto their platform, connecting all of the public institutions, public schools, institutions and all of that.  We have connected them onto the data centre, and then the next phase is to we are providing the eServices applications.

And all of these applications are data that will come into the data centre, and then this all relates to the big data we are talking.  So we have been able to achieve this, but what we need now is to empower the citizens through open data to create communities to identify some, to identify areas that we think are of importance to Ghanaians.  The example is in the health sector, the energy sector, and also the educational sector.  We are also looking at industry where most of our pollutions and all of that happen.

So we are working on this projects to see how we can use open data, big data to actually solve some of these problems so that it will be to our benefit.  So that's what we are doing in Ghana now.  It would interest me to say that Ghana will be hosting the second African open data Conference in Akara, and we will be announcing it at the OGP Conference in France.  And what we are trying to do is to introduce Internet Governance into open data so that these two drivers can actually drive towards the achievement of the SDGs.  So I look forward to seeing some of you in that Conference in Akara.  Thank you.

>> MODERATOR:  Thank you very much.

>> AUDIENCE:  I want to have some comments to the special issue just introduced.  We are working on a special issue to the journal of data science which will include the expertise and the data sharing work of Developing Countries.  So I think if we talk about environment because it's one of the crucial issues that is developing actually not in developing country has to confront too.  So we focus the environmental problem, monitoring of the environmental, and also research big data may act as the two.

So they have provided tons of information for different users, not only academic community, but also some users from industry to promote the analysis and improvement of environmental problem.  I mean, we do it together.  So talking about the special issue we just want to ask why the participation of our Developing Countries we may collect the best practice and the good example of this kind of application used in big data on the environmental problem and the way we can supply the best practice with the support of Internet at only in the special issue of data science, Journal of Data Science as I mentioned.  I think we have a lot to do together from the colleague from different communities.

>> MODERATOR:  Good.  Thank you.  Thank you.  So this is for a very specific issue but we want to talk now more broad.

>> AUDIENCE:  In South Africa we still have challenge in terms of infrastructure whereby we can create, we can create those mobile apps that will assist us in accessing data.  I think infrastructure is still a challenge.

>> MODERATOR:  So other comments or questions?  Go ahead.

>> WISDOM DONKOR:  We also, I mean, we shouldn't also forget the fact that all that we are doing should be geared towards creating employment for our people and I believe open data is what can also do that.  We in Ghana have realized that our students that are coming out from the universities, you know, these are the students that will fit into the various industries and most of them also lack that knowledge of what data and all of that.  Sometimes they don't know how to even use data to their advantage or to their benefit.

So what we try to do is is actually create communities around some of this data that we release let's say for health, for instance.  We try to recreate communities and then we bring people together through programs such as (Indiscernible) and that is where you come in and you can get your (Indiscernible) so we bring the support together, we bring media, journalists together and we give them a task for them to interact with each other on how to use the data.

So out of this, the journalists can come out of this a good story.  The developers can also become the story and start developing a very good applications for citizens to actually interact with our Government.  There are a whole lot of things that we can do with open data to actually solve our problems in achieving the SDGs that we are talking about and such as through open data and all of that.  We also have to collaborate all of our Civil Society, Government, technical communities, all of us have to come together and then see what we can do to reach the SDGs.

>> MODERATOR:  Very good.  So I would just suggest you to contact with Jo and then we maybe have a plan of action, another action and Zhou work together based on the IGF and then maybe we have another joint action, have training and also information you change.  Good.  So any other suggestions?  Okay.  So we had because of the time, we have very good, very big topic, but very limited time, but we have good people here, so now I would like to have conclusion.  The big data is a big issue.  And then environment is our common, common string to work together.  So big data and the environment is a good link.  And how to make this happen in the IGF framework and not only, but I would like to work with all of you to keep the contact and keep the long‑term contribution.

Because data is long term.  The only short term it's not very good.  So we would like to have joint action for workshop or focus on specific region, for example, Africa, Asia, Latin America, so we have two things in the Latin America, in the Cuba and Colombia ‑‑ oh, three, and Brazil also.  But maybe next time we also have in the other country, in the Latin America, but in Africa we have South Africa twice and also Kenya.  So maybe we have ‑‑ and then we plan to have Madagascar.  So maybe next we plan in Ghana.  So we work together on that.

And then we will have Asia, in the Asia and we already have in China many Mongolia and Thailand.  So plan to have another one in India and Sri Lanka after that.  So this is, we have this is a very local activity and then we network to the global scale.  But the environment is not only one issue for global warming or some specific issue disaster, but a local issue also is very important.  For example, in Asia for air pollution, for example, in China, we suffer air pollution, it's terrible, but in India has the same thing, but in Developing Countries suffering this?  So we need to work together to find some solution through the data understanding that.

So this is the regional, but also local, very local.  So locally we also learn to each other about the experience, local experiences.  And not only the data, but the experiences.  Besides that, we also need capacity building.  But in China and we work with several organisations each year we have three workshop invite support of Developing Countries to come to China and then we have a training workshop and discuss the specific need for the countries.

So all of this and I think that all of this as opportunities for us to work on the big data and the environmental issue.  And I believe right now it's the very beginning of the big data and the environment especially for the big data issue, very, very beginning.  The later with the satellite, when the satellite comes and the more and the more good the computer data mining comes, and I think more and more data comes.  And the new technology will be created.

So this is the new challenge for us.  So I thank you very much for each of you to participate in this workshop, and we keep in touch and we all on line and I recommend you to mention to the website, you can find the new data site each week, each week updated the data comes.  And all of the data comes from Developing Countries and I think it's good.  So and we have also the business card so we can to communicate to each other later.  So now, if you have any questions?  No.  Okay.  So now I announce this session closed.

(Applause).

(Concluded at 1203).