HRDC ATTENDS VizAfrica BOTSWANA 2019

Data visualisation has become a necessity in the 21^st Century, as such critical in the boardroom and the entire business as it assists decision makers to have full data comprehension that ultimately influences profitable decision making. Data visualisation has also assisted decision makers to focus on business insights to unearth issues that require attention as they reveal insights and the story behind the data to establish a business goal.

The VizAfrica 2019 Data Visualisation main Symposium took place from the 18^th - 19^th November 2019 at the University of Botswana (UB) Conference Centre Gaborone, Botswana. This was a symposium organised by the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (CODATA), VizAfrica and the University of Botswana (UB). CODATA role is to promote global collaboration to advance Open Science and to improve the availability and usability of data for all areas of research. The theme of the symposium was, ‘Application of Data, Information and Scientific Visualisation for Resource Management and Sustainability.’

The symposium took shape through the guidance of the six (6) session themes namely; Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation; Computer Graphics, Media and Animation; Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Security; Data Analytics, Visualisation and Internet of Things (IoTs); Policy Design, Analysis and Strategic Management and e-Health and Universal Health Coverage.

In a bid to contribute to the wider adoption of visualisation, the symposium brought together various actors to engage in various topical discussions. The symposium was part of the UB’s mission of improving economic and social conditions for Botswana while advancing itself as a distinctively African University with a regional and international outlook. Through embracing of this initiative UB will then be fulfilling its mandate of reaching out to and interacting with international community, the general public, entrepreneurs, scientists and policy makers on advances in technological innovations for social economic development and industrialisation. The Symposium was attended by well over 300 participants drawn from the Government ministries, universities, research organisations, corporate, data visualization research luminaries, learners, small and medium scale industries (SMEs), policy makers in key sectors of the economy and from international organisations.  

Further to the enhancement of the Symposium there was a one-week Summer School training from the 11^th - 15^th November 2019 on Data Science/Visualisation. The training accorded researchers, policy advisors, the opportunity to be capacitated and trained on making use of the valuable data that they are holding in their various data repositories and databases; to make meaning out of it, get insight and draw new knowledge from it. They were all able to interact and given an opportunity to bring their own data to work on and manipulate as they also got the opportunity of getting peer reviews on their projects.