Pretoria - Opening up science to embrace the data revolution had huge potential for the development of African countries.
This could be instrumental in the alleviation of poverty, reducing hunger and balancing the inequality scales. And while this would not directly change the situation facing many underdeveloped countries, the government’s opening up to what an internationally united science sector had to offer would provide the tools to improve the status of their countries.
“We are providing the ammunition, let them shoot it,” said Saths Cooper, of South Africa’s Information and Communication Outreach.
Cooper explained that there was a lot of interest in joining the data revolution from African countries.
He was among the speakers on a discussion titled Open Data in a Big World yesterday during the Science Forum South Africa at the CSIR Convention Centre, attended by about 1 500 participants.
A global accord was formulated by the collaboration of four big science bodies, geared towards significantly shaping science in the 21st century.
The accord will assure broad access to “big data” which was increasingly essential for research in areas ranging from health and agriculture, to environment and human behaviour.
It was developed during a the 2015 meeting of Science International with the participation of organisers and working group members from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America.
“The world experienced a digital revolution between 2002 and 2003, which saw an explosion of low cost methods of sourcing data,” UK geoscientist Geoffrey Boulton said.
Incredible changes were taking place, he said.
“This is a historical event that we are going through; the revolution has brought tremendous changes and every device that has power provides access to cheap means of getting information,” he said.
The accord is the joint product of a collaboration of The International Council for Science, the InterAcademy Partnership, The World Academy for Science and the International Social Science Council.
These bodies represent the global scientific community in the international policy for science arena. The four represent more than 100 science academies worldwide.
Professor Daya Reddy, from the Academy of Science of South Africa, said the open data would address challenges met by scientists.
“This collaboration collectively represent 250 national bodies leadership, bodies funding the council, and we have come together to pool our knowledge and work together, particularly with the aim of contributing to the strength of science.
We also engage in projects that have implications of policy,” he said.
The accord sets out responsibilities and guidelines that should go with open data and make all scientific works available to stakeholders who need it.
Scientists, researchers, funding bodies, universities and others will have access to scientific work on a single controlled platform from anywhere in the world, and this will be used for different needs.
Bridging the digital divide and developing skills in Africa is an area of immediate focus.
Cooper said the accord had to translate into tangible things that made a difference and had societal benefit for the continent. “We need to look at it in an interdisciplinary way because Africa has 35 countries that are least developed.”
The ideals of the accord would be taken to the African Union (AU) and meet the ideals of the 2063 agenda, he said.
Pretoria News
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