EU DataViz 2019 - Pleanary - New

EU DataViz 2019 - Speaker details

Plenary speeches

Rudolf Strohmeier

Director-General at the Publications Office of the EU

"Opening speech"

Biography

Rudolf W. Strohmeier has been Director-General of the Publications Office since May 2016.

Previously Deputy Director-General for Research & Innovation at the Commission, he has a background in law and economics.

Working in the European Commission since 1987, he was inter-alia serving in the Cabinets of President Prodi, Commissioners Schmidhuber, Fischler (Deputy Head of Cabinet) and Reding II (Head of Cabinet).

Marc Hansen

Minister for the Civil Service,
Minister for Relations with Parliament,
Minister Delegate for Digitalisation,
Minister Delegate for the Administrative Reform of the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

"Keynote address"

Biography

In 2013, Marc Hansen was elected to Parliament until he entered the government in 2014. Following the 2018 legislative elections, Marc Hansen was appointed:

Minister for the Civil Service,
Minister for Relations with Parliament,
Minister Delegate for Digitalisation and
Minister Delegate for Administrative Reform.

Before starting his political career, he worked as a reporter for RTL Lëtzebuerg and, later on, he became chief executive officer and managing director of Éditions Lëtzebuerger Journal. He was also the cofounder of several innovative start-ups in the information technology sector.

Victoria Boeck

Open data researcher at Technologiestiftung Berlin (Germany)

"Open data and data visualisation: building the virtuous cycle"

Biography

Victoria Boeck is an open data researcher at the Technologiestiftung Berlin.

There she leads the ‘Open Data Informationsstelle’ (ODIS), a cooperation between the Technologiestiftung and the Berlin city government that aims to encourage more open data publishing among government employees.

Part of these activities include coming up with ideas of how to make open data more accessible and useful through visualisations and other applications of the data.

She is a graduate of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, where she studied public policy.

Session

How can a government increase awareness of and enthusiasm for their open data programmes in the face of existing challenges?

One not-so-obvious answer: This talk will focus on how public sector data visualisation can be used to support public sector policy goals through concrete successful examples.

Marc Wilikens

Head of unit at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EU)

"Visualisation for knowledge communication: a holistic approach"

Biography

Marc Wilikens is the Head of the knowledge management methodologies, communities and dissemination unit at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre.

The unit provides practical and comprehensive solutions to support the vision of the JRC "to play a central role in creating, managing and making sense of collective scientific knowledge for better EU policies".

In this context, informing policymakers and citizens of our science in impactful ways increasingly relies on the power of visual communication.

As part of the activities, the unit develops core competence in the design of infographics and audio-visual products in co-creation with JRC scientists for integration in flagship publications and knowledge for policy communication products.

Session

The Joint Research Centre has produced 10 flagship reports linking state-of-the-art knowledge with key policy topics.

This is an inspiring talk about the design process and the solutions and lessons learned from visualising the complex Knowledge4Policy that is embedded in reports and in associated communication products like social media.

Xaquín Veira González

Visual journalism and data visualisation consultant at Xaquín G.V. (Spain)

"Honest visuals: ethics in data visualisation"

Biography

Xaquín G.V. is an award-winning expert in data-driven visual storytelling.

He recently led the Visuals desk at The Guardian.

Before that, he worked at National Geographic, The New York Times, and El Mundo.

Session

Data visualisation is as susceptible to misinterpretation and manipulation as any other communication method.

How to spot misleading visuals, prevent biases when selecting the frame and the visualisation, and ensure data and visual literacy to prevent misinformation?

Benjamin Wiederkehr

Managing director and founding partner at Interactive Things (Switzerland)

"Visualising data for exploration and explanation — and everything in between"

Biography

Benjamin Wiederkehr is an interaction designer with a focus on data visualisation and interface design.

He is co-founder and managing director of Interactive Things, a design and technology studio specialised in data visualisation and user experience design.

Benjamin lectures on the topics of data visualisation and interface design at Zürich University of Arts and the University of the Arts Bern.

Session

Finding the right place on the spectrum between explanatory and exploratory is a key milestone when building a data publication.

Illustrated by two case studies, this talk will walk the audience through the processes behind the data strategy and data design that lead to very different results.

Juan Arevalo Torres

Chief executive officer at Randbee consultants (Spain)

"The art of spatial data storytelling"

Biography

Juan Arevalo Torres is an entrepreneur working in the field of spatial data science and visualisation.

He uses spatial data and open source software to inform decision-makers and citizens alike.

He has more than 14 years of experience working in the private sector, for NGOs and in the public sector, including for the European Commission and the United Nations.

His latest data visualisation projects include the Urban Data Platform, several renewable energy decision-support tools in western Africa, a multilingual storytelling tool for the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of Unesco (IOC-UNESCO) and a forest fire mapping project using Copernicus data.

Session

How to create spatial data visualisation tools that are easy to use, beautiful, capture attention and inspire actions.

This presentation will be a source of inspiration for everyone interested in earth observation and geographical data.

Caroline Goulard

Chief executive officer at Dataveyes (France)

"Making the invisible visible"

Biography

Ever since the completion of her studies, Caroline has been nurturing a passion for how information can be expressed, shared and understood.

In 2010, sensing that the rich data era will transform the way we work, learn and communicate, she co-founded Dataveyes, a studio specialised in Human–Data interactions.

Within Dataveyes, she translates data into interactive experiences, in order to reveal new insightful stories, accompany new uses and understand our environment shaped by data and algorithms.

Session

In the case of data visualisation, ‘making the invisible visible’ has a special meaning.

It is less about improving our sight and more about enhancing our perception of the world and our understanding of the phenomena around us.

Barthélémy von Haller

Senior software engineer at CERN — European Organization for Nuclear Research (Switzerland)

"Visualising the cosmos: from the tiniest scales to the massive black holes"

Biography

Barthélémy von Haller (senior software engineer, CERN) studied Computer Science at EPFL and started working at CERN shortly after his MSc.

His initial years were spent in IT, developing project management software, before moving to the Experimental Physics department.

There, he joined the Data Acquisition group of the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, where he is responsible for the design and development of the tools to monitor the data quality.

This field, which includes the visualisation of the phenomena recorded by the detectors, is a key element of large scientific experiments in general, such as the LHC's ones, or the Blue Brain Project where he carried out a similar project.

Session

Subatomic particles make up everything that we observe in the universe and yet they are far too tiny to see.

CERN will present efforts to handle and visualise the millions of gigabytes of data that experiments record every year.

DNEG will speak about the challenges of visualising the complex physics of the universe’s most massive objects (black holes and gravitational waves) and how they approached the visual effects for the Hollywood movie Interstellar, as well as their collaboration with the Nobel laureate in Physics Kip Thorne to develop a new tool to visualise space.

For copyright reasons, we are unable to show the presentation of Oliver James. For further information you may contact the speaker.

Jeremi Niedziela

Researcher at CERN — European Organization for Nuclear Research (Switzerland)

"Visualising the cosmos: from the tiniest scales to the massive black holes"

Biography

Jeremi Niedziela is a researcher in CMS experiment s at LHC, working on the fundamental problems of modern physics.

His current focus is searching for short, disappearing tracks, a possible signature of supersymmetric particles that live very briefly before decaying into Dark Matter particles, as well as light-by-light scattering — an elusive but fundamental Quantum Mechanical process.

Previously he has worked on the collisions visualisation system of ALICE, allowing the revealing of particles invisible to the human eye, which is useful to better understand physics phenomena, but also to monitor data acquisition online.

Session

Subatomic particles make up everything that we observe in the universe and yet they are far too tiny to see.

CERN will present efforts to handle and visualise the millions of gigabytes of data that experiments record every year.

For copyright reasons, we are unable to show the presentation of Oliver James. For further information you may contact the speaker.

Oliver James

Chief scientist at DNEG — Double Negative (United Kingdom)

"Visualising the cosmos: from the tiniest scales to the massive black holes"

Biography

Oliver James is Chief Scientist at DNEG.

He has spent over 20 years in the visual effects industry developing technology to deliver some of the most demanding effects in film.

Oliver led the development of the DNEG Gravitational Renderer, which enabled the creation of the Oscar- and BAFTA-winning visual effects for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

Session

Subatomic particles make up everything that we observe in the universe and yet they are far too tiny to see.

CERN will present efforts to handle and visualise the millions of gigabytes of data that experiments record every year.

For copyright reasons, we are unable to show the presentation of Oliver James. For further information you may contact the speaker.

Paul Hofheinz

President and co-founder of The Lisbon Council (Belgium)

"Closing words"

Biography

Paul Hofheinz is president and co-founder of the Lisbon Council, an independent, non-partisan think tank and research centre based in Brussels, Belgium. It was founded in 2003.

Previously, Mr. Hofheinz worked as a writer and editor at The Wall Street Journal, covering such diverse topics as European integration, financial-market regulation, emerging markets and Russia. In 1998-1999, he was managing editor of Central European Economic Review. Prior to that, he was associate editor of Fortune. He began his career in London as a reporter for Time magazine.

Mr. Hofheinz holds a Master of Science (MSc) degree in the government and politics of Russia from London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in history from Yale, where he received the prestigious John Addison Porter and Dean Henry P. Wright prizes upon graduation. He speaks fluent English, French and Russian.

EU DataViz 2019 - Thematic sessions - New

Thematic session: 1. Understanding policy

In an increasingly connected world, understanding data is key for policymaking.

This session will highlight several data visualisation issues in domains like elections and trade policies.

Annie White

Senior software product manager at Harvard’s Growth Lab (United States)

"Communicating complex economic topics for policymakers"

Biography

Annie White oversees the development of software tools at Harvard’s Growth Lab.

For the past 2 years she has guided the development of the Growth Lab’s flagship tool — the Atlas of Economic Complexity — from research to design to development and launch.

Prior to her role at Harvard, Annie was a product director at Sustainalytics, in Boston and Toronto and an analyst at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C.

Annie holds a Master’s degree in development economics from the University of Glasgow and a Bachelor’s degree in political science, from the University of Western Ontario. With 15 years of experience in sustainable development research, media and software projects, she is interested in how digital products can help solve global development challenges.

Session

Discover the making of Harvard’s atlas of economic complexity, a powerful data visualisation platform that allows people to explore global trade flows across markets, track these dynamics over time and discover new growth opportunities.

Nil Tuzcu

Designer, The Atlas of Economic Complexity at Harvard’s Growth Lab (United States)

"Communicating complex economic topics for policymakers"

Biography

Nil Tuzcu is a creative technologist and multimedia designer working at the intersection of storytelling, user experience design and data visualisation.

In her multidisciplinary work, she translates data into engaging visual narratives to make complex political, economic and geographical data accessible to the public.

Nil was trained in design, urban policy and information technologies at Cornell University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Session

Discover the making of Harvard’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, a powerful data visualisation platform that allows people to explore global trade flows across markets, track these dynamics over time and discover new growth opportunities.

Joanna Sleigh

Bioethics researcher at ETH Zürich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (Switzerland)

"Visualising ethical frameworks and policy documents in digital spaces"

Biography

Joanna Sleigh is a visual and media anthropologist currently working at the Health Ethics and Policy Lab, ETH Zürich.

Joanna has international experience in the academic, communication, and creative sectors.

In September, Joanna will embark on a PhD at the Health Ethics and Policy Lab, ETH Zürich.

Session

In contrast to the interactive content that is becoming the norm for information dissemination, traditional policy documents and guidelines run the risk of being overlooked.

Learn how to transform them into interactive visualisations.

Manuel Schneider

Bioethics researcher at ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (Switzerland)

"Visualising ethical frameworks and policy documents in digital spaces"

Biography

Manuel Schneider holds a Master of Science in theoretical physics and is currently a PhD candidate at the Health Ethics and Policy Lab, ETH Zürich.

Manuel also established and leads a start-up company that applies machine learning to automated decision-making, and he regularly collaborates with medical informatics projects.

Session

In contrast to the interactive content that is becoming the norm for information dissemination, traditional policy documents and guidelines run the risk of being overlooked.

Learn how to transform them into interactive visualisations.

Arnold Platon

Data-visualisation freelancer (Romania)

"European Union elections: the case for a harmonised treatment of European election data"

Biography

Arnold Platon is an architecture graduate from Romania who currently works in 3D infrastructure design in France.

He does various side-projects as a data-visualisation freelancer, the European Union being one of his main themes.

His latest project was a detailed, municipality-level mapping of the 2019 European Elections with the German publication Die Zeit.

Session

European Union (EU) elections are still being disputed at national level and on national topics of interest.

This session will look into harmonising the existing heterogeneous election data across EU Member States to allow a unified visual representation at EU level, compare results and open a truly pan-EU debate.

Lorenzo Isella

Statistician at the Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission (EU)

"European and international trade: summary for cabinet briefings"

Biography

Originally trained as a statistical physicist.

He has worked in different fields where statistics and data played a prominent role.

His first job after his PhD in England was that of data analyst for an investment bank in Milan, followed by a 3-year period at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, where he worked as a mathematical modeller for the emissions of diesel vehicles.

After that, he spent 2 years in Turin at the ISI Foundation working as a network scientist.

He rejoined the Commission in 2011 to work on nuclear safeguards in Luxembourg and moved to Brussels in 2013.

Since 2013 he has been working as a statistician/data scientist in different roles and he is now part of the Chief Economist Unit at the Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission.

Session

Policymakers need to have access to clear statistics to quickly grasp the fundamentals of a topic.

Despite its apparent simplicity, this example from the Directorate-General for Trade uses a combination of sophisticated processing tools.

Thematic session: 2. Discovering statistics

Learn creative techniques to present statistics in an insightful manner.

Annika Brauer

Head of the data technology department at Statistics Estonia (Estonia)

"Building digital dashboards for fully personalised data experience"

Biography

Annika Brauer is the head of the data technology department at Statistics Estonia.

She supervises the planning and execution of all technology-related development projects, both core statistical production systems as well as client-side applications, which involve an innovative approach for data sharing.

Previously she has held managerial positions as the Head of E-channels at Telia (Estonia) and Swedbank (Baltics).

Annika has a Master’s degree in business information technology from Tallinn University of Technology.

Session

The game-changing digital statistics dashboards at Statistics Estonia provide an innovative experience for the government and public authorities to support their decision-making.

Wiesława Gierańczyk

Director at Statistics Poland (Poland)

"Visualisation of experimental statistical data from administrative registers in Poland"

Biography

Wiesława Gierańczyk has a PhD in Earth Sciences, is director of the Statistical Office in Bydgoszcz specialising in the area of labour market statistics, in which domain she performs tasks on behalf of official statistics as a whole.

She is author or co-author of many reference studies and reviewer of academic papers published in national and international journals. Her main interest areas include innovation, geography of industry and regional development.

Session

As official statistics move away from traditional sources of data, Statistics Poland shares its experience in visualising experimental data acquired from administrative sources.

Leszek Kozlowski

Head of the department, at Statistics Poland (Poland)

"Visualisation of experimental statistical data from administrative registers in Poland"

Biography

Leszek Kozlowski has a PhD in Geographical Sciences, currently works at the Statistical Office in Bydgoszcz.

There, he manages the work of the Centre for Labour Market Surveys and Analyses.

Previously, he was a didactic and scientific employee of a university in the field of socioeconomic geography and spatial management.

Session

As official statistics move away from traditional sources of data, Statistics Poland shares its experience in visualising experimental data acquired from administrative sources.

Louis de Charsonville

Data scientist at the European Central Bank (EU)

"Using visualisation to monitor and explore European market infrastructure regulation data on derivatives"

Biography

Louis de Charsonville is a data scientist at the European Central Bank where he develops new algorithms and dashboards to derive insights from European market infrastructure regulation huge granular micro dataset.

Previously, he was an economist in the inflation forecasting unit at Banque de France.

He is a graduate of ENSAE ParisTech and Sciences Po Paris.

Session

Learn how the European Central Bank has managed to visualise large amounts of financial data, taking into account the complex interdependencies, for efficient monitoring and exploration.

Oliver Wise

Director at the Socrata Data Academy at Tyler Technologies (United States)

"Six recipes for solving common operational challenges with data analytics"

Biography

Oliver Wise is the director of Socrata Data Academy at Tyler Technologies Data & Insights Division.

In this role, he helps government leaders, programme managers, and data analysts understand how to leverage data for better public policy outcomes.

Prior to joining Tyler Technologies, Oliver was the founding director of the City of New Orleans Office of Performance and Accountability, this city's first data analytics team.

Oliver's work has been recognised with awards from Harvard University, the American Society of Public Administration, International City Managers Association, and Government Technology magazine.

Session

Government employees invest a lot of time in thinking about how to make data more accessible and useful to both internal and external stakeholders. However, how do you translate that data into insights that address important challenges facing your organisation?

Thematic session: 3. EXPLORING GEOSPATIAL DATA

How to visualise geospatial information and create meaningful maps.

Pierre Soille

Project leader at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EU)

"Exploratory visualisation and interactive analysis of big geospatial data"

Biography

Pierre Soille is leading the Big Data Analytics project at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (Ispra site, Italy).

He is also responsible for the JRC Big Data Platform (JEODPP), a versatile multi-petabyte-scale platform for the extraction of policy-relevant indicators from big data sources with a focus on geospatial data.

This platform is promoting collaborative data science through web-enabled exploratory visualisation and interactive analysis with on-the-fly rendering and computations thanks to Jupyter notebooks relying on the concept of deferred processing.

Session

The visualisation and timely analysis of big data streams is becoming a major challenge.

In this context, static visualisations are no longer suitable.

This calls for dynamic and exploratory services where the user can explore, combine and visualise selected datasets.

Antje Kügeler

Project manager at Conterra (Germany)

"The European Data Portal and the visualisation of geoinformation and real-time data"

Biography

Antje Kügeler is the project manager for Conterra’s part in supporting the European Data Portal.

She has a MSc in geography and has been working in the field of Geoinformatics since 1998.

She currently works for conterra in the role of project manager and market delivery manager for spatial data infrastructures.

Session

The visualisation of geoinformation is a very powerful means to explore and demonstrate causalities, whose use often remains limited to a community of experts.

Gain a deeper understanding of the power of geoinformation.

Simon Jirka

Project manager and community lead at 52north (Germany)

"The European Data Portal and the visualisation of geoinformation and real-time data"

Biography

Simon Jirka works as project manager and sensor web community lead for 52°North.

He has a PhD in Geoinformatics from Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.

Furthermore, Simon coordinates the sensor web related contribution of 52°North to the European Data Portal.

Session

The visualisation of geoinformation is a very powerful means to explore and demonstrate causalities, whose use often remains limited to a community of experts.

Gain a deeper understanding of the power of geoinformation.

Eline Lincklaen

Consultant at Capgemini Invent (The Netherlands)

"The European Data Portal and the visualisation of geoinformation and real-time data"

Biography

Eline Lincklaen Arriëns is a consultant at Capgemini Invent and supports the communication activities in the European Data Portal.

She has a Masters in Geography from King’s College London and currently works at Capgemini Invent in the role of consultant and delivery and operations.

Session

The visualisation of geoinformation is a very powerful means to explore and demonstrate causalities, whose use often remains limited to a community of experts.

Gain a deeper understanding of the power of geoinformation.

Michael Neutze

Expert at Destatis — Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Germany)

"Meaningful maps"

Biography

Michael Neutze has a degree in Geography and has been with Destatis for 21 years with experience in publishing, data visualisation, cartography and the census.

He is known for the animated population pyramids, traffic accidents calendar and interactive maps using open web standards.

Session

This session aims at a better understanding of thematic maps: when, where and how to use them.

We will discuss the tool-chain required to build interactive maps on the web and showcase examples of what is possible with D3.js.

Anna Slawinska

GIS specialist at Statistics Poland (Poland)

"Geovisualisation of spatial statistical data"

Biography

Anna Slawinska has worked for Statistics Poland for 9 years.

She is currently in ICT Systems, Geostatistics and Census Department in the Geospatial Information Section responsible for managing spatial data in public statistics, development of a new platform for geovisualisation and spatial analysis of statistical data.

In addition, she is trainer for the current Geostatistics Portal (presenting statistical data from censuses and research).

She participates in international work on integration of statistical and geospatial data carried out under the European Forum for Geography and Statistics (EFGS) and in the work of Working Group UN-GGIM: Europe Data Integration.

Session

The Statistics Poland geostatistics portal allows the visualisation of statistical data as well as more sophisticated geostatistical analyses.

Thematic session: 4. SERVING CITIZENS

A focus on how data visualisation can help increase citizens understanding in different domains — from statistics to culture and art.

Lorenzo Ferrari

Editorial coordinator of the European Data Journalism Network (Italy)

"Making it easier for citizens to use, adapt and build upon data visualisations: lessons learned by EDJNet"

Biography

Lorenzo Ferrari is editorial coordinator of the European Data Journalism Network, which is currently made up of 28 media outlets based in 14 Member States.

He is head of the data team at Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa, where he has been working since 2017.

Lorenzo has a PhD in the history of European integration and he also collaborates with publishing companies.

Session

Learn about the strategies of the EDJNet to make it easier for media and the European public to fully understand data visualisations, adapt and customise the angle of a given visualisation and use it across different platforms.

Martin Ralphs

Head of the government statistics service good practice team at the Office for National Statistics (United Kingdom)

"Using data visualisation to communicate statistics — Experiences from the UK"

Biography

Martin Ralphs has led the GSS Good Practice Team since autumn 2013 after spending 12 years working in statistical methodology for the Office for National Statistics and Statistics New Zealand.

Martin led methodological support for the ONS Beyond 2011 Programme, exploring how administrative data could be used instead of a census.

He also headed up the Spatial Analysis Centre in ONS Methodology.

His 2 years in Statistics New Zealand in Wellington were spent developing small area modelling, geospatial and visualisation capability.

Session

This talk will explore approaches taken in the United Kingdom’s Government Statistical Service to visually present statistical information as well as options on how to tailor content for different users, from policymakers and expert consumers to the public.

Matteo Bonera

Creative director at The Visual Agency (Italy)

"Experience Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus — A new approach in digital humanities"

Biography

Matteo Bonera is Creative Director of The Visual Agency and Professor at Politecnico di Milano with over 10 years of professional experience.

His multidisciplinary background in visual, multimedia and information design enable him to push the creative boundaries of complex and award-winning communication projects of the public and private sector.

Session

On the occasion of the 500-year anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, The Visual Agency, together with Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, designed and developed an innovative data visualisation instrument to discover and explore da Vinci’s greatest masterpieces in a novel way.

Laima Grizaite

Advisor at the statistics dissemination and communication division at Statistics Lithuania (Lithuania)

"How do design students perceive statistics?"

Biography

Laima Grizaite is an adviser in the statistical dissemination and communication division of Statistics Lithuania.

Working for Statistics Lithuania since 2003 she is responsible for communication and visualisation projects and e-publications.

Her background is journalism.

Session

In this session, the audience will learn about an innovative way to reach out to new audiences and harvest their fresh perspectives on how visualisations could have a greater impact.

Statistics Lithuania and the design faculty of Vilnius College of Technologies and Design have been organising workshops on infographics and will share the lessons they learned and the feedback they received from the audience (design students).

They bring a completely new, interesting and unexpected view on statistics.

Thematic session: 5. TOOLS FOR DATA VISUALISATION

Showcasing tools to create powerful data visualisations.

Rafael Höhr

Infographics editor at Prodigioso Volcán (Spain)

"Applications to publish graphics in newsrooms"

Biography

Rafael Höhr is an information graphic journalist and data visualisation specialist.

Since 1999, he has been focused on interactive and multimedia graphic development in newspapers such as El Mundo, El País and The Sunday Times.

He is a partner at Prodigioso Volcán Design and Communication Agency, providing data visualisation consultancy, infographic design and visual information training for companies and organisations.

Session

A global perspective on the evolution of graphics used to explain news and reports, showing how software, hardware and users influence the design of graphics and data visualisation for different purposes.

Ariane Aumaitre

Researcher at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy)

"Interactive data visualisation using Shiny apps"

Biography

Ariane Aumaitre is a PhD researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute in Florence.

Her research focuses on welfare state sustainability and reform from an inter-generational perspective.

As part of her research, she has built a strong interest in data analysis and visualisation, as well as in computational methods, which she applies to the study of socioeconomic data.

Session

How to turn the challenges of managing large amounts of socioeconomic data into opportunities to engage users and consumers with the data that we are showing?

Learn how to create innovative tools for dynamic and interactive data visualisation.

Roberto Barcellan

Head of unit at the Directorate-General for Informatics of the European Commission (EU)

"Data visualisation technology to improve data access and dissemination"

Biography

Following his PhD in Statistics at the University of Padua, in 1999, Roberto Barcellan joined Eurostat where he has been responsible for National Accounts, Price Statistics, Research and Methodology.

In the Directorate-General for Informatics of the European Commission since 2015, he is in charge of data services — analytics, artificial intelligence, business intelligence, corporate collaboration solutions and content management.

Session

Best practices from the European Commission to improve data processing, analysis, dissemination and transparency in the public administrations of the EU and its Member States.

Yasmin Schinasi

Policy officer at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (EU)

"Data visualisation technology to improve data access and dissemination"

Biography

Yasmin is a policy officer at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries in the Economic Analysis, Markets and Impact Assessment unit, where she has been working for the last 2.5 years.

She is responsible for the Blue Indicators project and is one of the main authors of the EU blue economy report. Prior to that, she had worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as a number of private companies and NGOs based across Europe.

She has a 1st class BA honours in international relations and multilingual from the University of London, and an MA in international relations and European studies from the Central European University.

Session

Best practices from the European Commission to improve data processing, analysis, dissemination and transparency in the public administrations of the EU and its Member States.

Athanasios Stavrakoudis

Assistant professor at the University of Ioannina (Greece)

"R and SDMX visualisation"

Biography

Athanassios Stavrakoudis (PhD in computational chemistry) has 25 years’ experience in scientific data analysis and visualisation.

He has authored two textbooks and has over 100 hours of online lectures (in Greek).

Currently he is working with SDMX data storage, visualisation and reporting techniques, mainly with R.

Session

While SDMX technology has been adopted by virtually all main providers of official statistics, it is rarely used by researchers and practitioners. This session will look into an easy and efficient way to work with SDMX data and datasets using R and tidyverse.

Thematic session: 6. NEW WAYS TO PRESENT REPORTS

Several international and public administrations share their best practices in creating compelling visualisation to support monitoring, data exploration and decision-making.

Tony Fujs

Data scientist at the World Bank (United States)

"Open data, open code, open knowledge: visualising development data at the World Bank"

Biography

Tony’s goal is to shorten the path from data to insight by making data easier to find, access, combine, and understand.

As a data scientist at the World Bank Data Group, he leverages open source software to scale analytics, streamline reporting, and improve data visualisations.

Tony has conducted numerous tailor-made trainings for experts and practitioners alike, and has presented practical approaches to data visualisation at the Urban Institute, Georgetown University, and the American Evaluation Association.

Session

The World Bank will share practical methods of creating effective visualisations by presenting the 2018 atlas of sustainable development goals, the first fully reproducible visual report put together with open source tools.

Adina Renner

Information designer at Aalto University (Finland)

"Beyond the PDF — Creating reports that are relevant to your audience"

Biography

Adina Renner is a student of Information Design at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland.

In her design practice, she combines visualisation, data, code, and text to create connections between and among subject matters and people.

Her interests lie in data journalism, information design in the public sector, and urban design.

Session

The session showcases how a traditional PDF report can be developed into a dynamic online publication that employs data visualisation and data-driven storytelling.

Learn how user-centred information design can make government reports more relevant and insightful to a diverse audience.

Steve Albrecht

Business development and Tableau consultant at The Information Lab (Luxembourg)

"Discover how visual analytics helps the European Investment Fund deliver insights into public funding"

Biography

Co-founder and managing partner of The Information Lab and senior consultant in business intelligence and visual analytics.

He has accumulated experiences in large and small technology ventures.

He is curious and passionate about new innovative technologies.

He has an engineering degree in automation and an MBA in marketing.

Session

The European Investment Fund collaborated with The Information Lab to produce an interactive map that visualises investments across the EU.

From project design to technical realisation, learn how this project has helped the European Investment Fund become a data-driven organisation.

Suzan Fiack

Head of press and public relations at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Germany)

"How an annual report became an innovative magazine with infographics and visualised data"

Biography

Suzan Fiack has been Head of press and public relations at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment since 2009.

In her position she leads not only the press and public relations activities of the scientific institution, but also supports the development of appropriate good practices and guidelines in risk communications.

Previously, Suzan worked in scientific publishing (Blackwell Publishing and John Wiley & Sons) and as a scientist in universities and industry.

Session

Learn about this innovative initiative in the public sector: the official annual report was improved in order to better inform the public and political decision-makers.

Thematic session: 7. DESIGNING BEAUTIFUL DATA VISUALISATION

A guided tour of visual aesthetics, narratives and best practices to produce stunning data visualisations.

Jovan Lekovic

Independent data visualisation practitioner at The Synthesis Bureau (United Kingdom)

"Visualisation aesthetics: a practical approach for better-looking charts"

Biography

Jovan Lekovic is an independent data visualisation practitioner with a specific interest in visualisation as a form of communication.

He currently runs The Synthesis Bureau, producing, researching and teaching data visualisation.

Prior to that Jovan was the data visualisation lead for the BBC’s Audiences team, developing the in-house style guide, training the department on visualisation techniques and building internal flagship dashboards.

Session

The aim of the session is to offer participants a mental toolkit of approaches to aesthetics that they can apply in their day-to-day chart-making process.

Kirell Benzi

Creative data scientist at ekino (France)

"Using data art for science communication"

Biography

Kirell Benzi is a data artist.

He holds a PhD in data science from EFPL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) where he teaches data visualisation to over 180 Master’s students.

Kirell’s creations can be articulated and deciphered following an array of tones, shapes, dots, and lines that are staged according to the nature of the data, by using mathematical tools and methods which come straight from scientific research.

Through a hypnotic visual semantic, Kirell works to show that algorithms have a soul.

Session

Reveal the potential of data art for science communication and approach topics such as big data, artificial intelligence and the general data protection regulation from another angle.

Learn how science can rhyme with beauty and how art can be fun to look at.

Federica Fragapane

Information designer (Italy)

"Visual narratives to connect: data visualisation for and with people"

Biography

Federica Fragapane is a freelance Information and visual designer.

Her data visualisation projects have been published in Scientific American, BBC Science Focus and Wired US and she designed figures and charts for the United Nations Environment Programme.

She periodically collaborates with La Lettura — Corriere della Sera, working on the analysis and communication of cultural, environmental and social topics.

She is co-author of the infographics children’s book ‘Planet Earth’, published by National Geographic Kids and White Star and author of ‘The Stories Behind a Line’ a visual narrative of six asylum seekers’ journeys.

Session

This talk will focus on the concept of using data visualisation not only as a tool to communicate with people but also to give a voice to those who do not have a platform.

Birger Morgenstjerne

Partner and managing director at Ferdio (Denmark)

"Best practices in information design"

Biography

Birger Morgenstjerne is working in the field of dataviz and infographics as partner and consultant of the Copenhagen-based agency Ferdio.

This includes some of the biggest projects and clients in Scandinavia being in charge of consultancy, research, conceptualisation, copywriting, etc.

Session

‘Having worked in the field of information design for many years, we’ve failed and we’ve succeeded. But most importantly, we’ve learned’, Birger Morgenstjerne.

Jeppe Morgenstjerne

Partner and creative director at Ferdio (Denmark)

"Best practices in information design"

Biography

Jeppe Morgenstjerne is partner and head of design in the Danish infographic and data visualisation agency Ferdio.

His multidisciplinary role includes everything from art direction, conceptualisation to design.

Session

‘Having worked in the field of information design for many years, we’ve failed and we’ve succeeded. But most importantly, we’ve learned’, Birger Morgenstjerne.

Thematic session: 8. BUILDING SMART CITIES

A journey through smart cities all over the world.

Kentaro Akahoshi

Director of the urban visualisation coordination office at the Cabinet Office of Japan (Japan)

"Sharing vision through cutting-edge visualisation in Japan"

Biography

Kentaro Akahoshi of the Cabinet Office of Japan leads efforts to develop an information infrastructure enabling data-sharing between staff and stakeholders from different municipalities in Japan.

In his work to deepen the understanding of phenomena arising from urban structure, Akahoshi has facilitated skills-building events for public workers in Japan and engages in knowledge-sharing activities between experts in Japan and abroad.

Session

This session will highlight how urban data is visualised and shared in Japan to understand and unlock new insights into the phenomena arising from urban structure.

Reo Iijima

Urban structure visualisation promotion organiser at the Cabinet Office of Japan (Japan)

"Sharing vision through cutting-edge visualisation in Japan"

Biography

Reo Iijima of the urban structure visualisation promotion organisation facilitates international connections between data visualisations experts.

Recently, he has participated in work to share knowledge and approaches between European and Japanese data visualisation experts.

Session

This session will highlight how urban data is visualised and shared in Japan to understand and unlock new insights into the phenomena arising from urban structure.

Sebastian Meier

Lead data scientist at Technologiestiftung Berlin (Germany)

"CityVis: urban data visualisation"

Biography

Sebastian Meier is the lead data scientist at the Technologiestiftung Berlin and the scientific director of the CityLAB Berlin.

He graduated in Communication, Interface Design and completed his PhD in Geoinformatics at Potsdam University.

His research focus lies on spatial data analytics and visualisation as well as human-centred perspectives on software interfaces.

Session

Explore the ways in which data visualisation can be used to actively understand, shape and influence a city, particularly from the perspective of how both the process and the result can focus on the people involved.

Victoria Boeck

Open data researcher at Technologiestiftung Berlin (Germany)

"CityVis: urban data visualisation"

Biography

Victoria Boeck is an open data researcher at the Technologiestiftung Berlin.

Part of these activities include coming up with ideas of how to make open data more accessible and useful through visualisations and other applications of the data.

She is a graduate of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, where she studied public policy.

Session

John Walsh

Team leader at the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission (EU)

"The power of flying flags: visualisations for transparent EU structural investments"

Biography

John Walsh is a team leader in the Evaluation and European Semester unit of the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission.

In this function he works on ESIF open data and the monitoring and evaluation of the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds’ programmes.

He has a wide experience in issues linked to coordinating the implementation of the Structural Funds.

Session

A demonstration of how visuals can help clearly present even complex funding instruments and track investment achievements.

Milan Kabáč

Data engineer at Kereon Intelligence (France)

"DataViz: an inescapable tool for the development of ‘smart cities’"

Biography

Milan Kabáč is a data engineer at Kereon Intelligence where he works on research and development projects in the context of Big Data and IoT.

He has a solid professional experience acquired in the context of university/industry collaborative projects focused on innovative technologies with major players in the domain of IoT such as Intel and Sigfox as well as research labs at Inria and Imperial College London.

Session

Why is data visualisation indispensable to fully give meaning to and take advantage of the data generated by connected cities?

Be part of a live demonstration based on real data from a smart city.

Mickaël Marchese

Data analyst at Kereon Intelligence (France)

"DataViz: An inescapable tool for the development of ‘smart cities’"

Biography

Mickaël Marchese is a data analyst at Kereon Intelligence with a profound passion for data visualisation.

His objective is to turn figures into beautiful and meaningful visualisations because he believes this is the best way to make data reveal their true potential.

Session

Why is data visualisation indispensable to fully take advantage and give meaning to the data generated by connected cities? Be part of a live demonstration based on real data from a smart city.

Thematic session: 9. TELLING STORIES

Approaches to data storytelling of public administrations and data journalism.

Matteo Moretti

Information experience designer and co-founder of Sheldon.studio (Italy)

"Data storytelling for public administrations"

Biography

Matteo Moretti is a designer and research fellow at the Faculty of Design of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, he is one of the 100 ambassadors of Italian design in the world, named by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He was a Jury member for the World Press Photo Contest 2017-2018.

His projects have been awarded the Data Journalism Award and the European Design Award.

Session

The session will focus on a particular case study based on a new data storytelling paradigm intended to turn the online publication of data into a more engaging and immersive experience.

Hassel Fallas

Senior lecturer at the University of Guadalajara (México) and data editor at DataCounts

"Explore, visualise and tell: journalistic secrets to crafting a precise story with data"

Biography

Hassel Fallas is a journalist and lecturer.

She is dedicated to digital project management based on investigative journalism, database analysis and visualisation.

She is helping journalists and citizens in Latin America to extract valuable information from numbers and turn this into public interest reports.

Session

A step-by-step tour to create a precise, revealing and attractive narrative with data — from prioritising the integrity and quality of data to extracting significant conclusions from data.

Carol Cavaleiro

Assistant art editor at O Globo newspaper (Brazil)

"What do Brazilian voters search for in presidency candidates?"

Biography

Carol Cavaleiro is a visual journalist with 10 years of experience.

As a deputy art editor at O Globo, a newspaper which is part of the largest media conglomerate in Brazil, Carol is responsible for the infographics department, leads a multidisciplinary team and edits the daily visual content.

She also works at Aos Fatos, Brazil’s first multi-platform fact checking agency, as a consultant and UX.

Previously, she has worked at the other two most influential Brazilian newsrooms, Folha de S.Paulo and Estado de S.Paulo.

She organises In.Rio, an annual event that gathers Brazilian professionals to talk about visual journalism.

Session

The Brazilian elections and the work developed to try to understand the massive volume of data related to this theme is a case study on 21st-century politics and the rise of social media.

Yosune Chamizo Alberro

Information designer at Animal Político (Mexico)

"To murder in Mexico: impunity guaranteed"

Biography

Yosune Chamizo Alberro is the Information Designer at Animal Político, an independent and digital news outlet in Mexico City.

She has been part of projects such as: To Murder in Mexico: Impunity Guaranteed; The Master Scam: graduated in disappearing public money, The Ghost Companies of Veracruz, NarcoData: In-depth digital analysis of the organised crime in Mexico, among others.

Yosune is the regional representative in Mexico for the International Institute for Information Design.

Session

Using visuals, Animal Político, a project that has won prizes for exceptional rule-of-law journalism, reports on important rule-of-law issues and contributes to making society better.

Thematic session: 10. EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Going beyond state of the art — the future of data visualisation.

Benoît Otjacques

Head of unit at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (Luxembourg)

"Visualisation and machine learning: the right mix to reach trustworthy artificial intelligence?"

Biography

Benoît Otjacques holds a PhD related to data visualisation and has more than 15 years of experience in the field.

He is leading a team of around 30 data scientists at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) aiming to contribute to the digital and ecological transition.

In his career, he has been mainly active in bridging the gap between research in data visualisation and applications in business and industry.

Currently, he is especially interested in exploring how visualisation and artificial intelligence can be combined to make the latter more understandable and therefore more acceptable to be widely used in the society.

Session

This session will highlight how beneficial it may be to combine visualisation and artificial intelligence to solve problems within their respective fields and in many application domains.

Fernanda Néry

Data management expert at the European Environment Agency (EU)

"Data visualisation tools at the European Environment Agency "

Biography

Fernanda Néry is a data management expert at the European Environment Agency (EEA), where she has worked since 2014 in the development of tools and processes for the collection, quality control, statistical analysis and publication of environmental data, with a special focus on water quality and water resources management.

Session

This session will present the best practices and experiences with data visualisation tools at the European Environment Agency to better plan future developments and gain insight ionto how to overcome existing limitations.

Sébastien Petit

Geoinformation systems expert at the European Environment Agency (EU)

"Data visualisation tools at the European Environment Agency"

Biography

Sébastien Petit is a geoinformation systems expert at the European Environment Agency (EEA), where he has worked since 2007 in the development of tools and services for the dissemination of spatial data.

His focus is mainly on webservices, webmaps and webapplications.

Session

Davide Vernassa

Front-end developer at Knowage — Engineering Ingegneria Informatica (Italy)

"Accessibility in data visualisation"

Biography

Davide Vernassa graduated in cinema and communication media engineering.

Davide spent the first years of his career working closely with major accessibility mentors.

Since 2011 he has been UI designer and senior front-end developer within Knowage Labs: he is in charge of the whole Knowage suite front-end and accessibility features.

He contributed to the P4All project, developing new accessible BI features and arranging various dissemination activities.

Session

Accessibility for visually impaired people is not really a trending topic in data visualisation.

Knowage is among the first business intelligence tools that took on the challenge of making data truly available for everyone.

Anoop Variyan Kandiyil

Founder and managing director at PublicBI (Germany)

"Before and beyond data visualisation"

Biography

Anoop Variyan Kandiyil is a business intelligence professional with over 13 years of experience in building data warehousing and business intelligence solutions for various companies across the globe.

He is highly passionate about data, business intelligence solutions, and data visualisations.

He is the founder and managing director of PublicBI, which won the 2nd prize at EU Datathon 2018.

His mission is to improve lives with business intelligence.

Session

What are some of the free data visualisation tools and cloud services that can be used by the public sector, especially when dealing with open data?

EU DataViz 2019 - Stands

Stands

Martin Schäfer

Technical director at the Flavia It-Management GmbH (Germany)

"FlaVR: a guided tour of collaborative data visualisation in virtual reality"

Biography

Martin Schäfer is a data professional with 10 years of industry experience and he is currently working on realising the vision of collaborative real-time data visualisation in virtual reality.

Product lead for FlaVR, the first truly cross platform collaborative data visualisation platform in virtual reality.

Technical speaker on conferences and trade fairs (e.g. Hannover Messe).

Stand description

Virtual reality could enable completely new ways of participating in social processes, paving the way for a networked and open society in which all citizens can take part in the complex decision-making process.

Marit Blank

Data researcher and consultant at Capgemini Invent (The Netherlands)

"European Data Portal"

Biography

Marit researches how open data can empower citizens and consults Member States in pushing forward open data to create societal, economic, and environmental impact.

Her personal interest lies within data ethics and data for good.

Stand description

The European Data Portal harvests the metadata of public sector information available on public data portals across European countries.

Information regarding the provision of data and the benefits of re-using data is also included.

Gianfranco Cecconi

“European Data Portal” and “Support Centre for Data Sharing” lead at Capgemini Invent (The Netherlands)

"European Data Portal"

Biography

Gianfranco Cecconi is a principal in Capgemini Invent.

His focus is data ethics and data-driven innovation and decision-making, and everything that makes a modern data ecosystem healthy.

Stand description

The European Data Portal harvests the metadata of public sector information available on public data portals across European countries.

Information regarding the provision of data and the benefits of re-using data is also included.

Kathleen Forichon

Junior policy analyst at the OECD (France)

"States of fragility: visualising the OECD’s fragility framework"

Biography

Kathleen Forichon is a junior policy analyst in crises and fragility at the OECD, contributing to the OECD’s states of fragility report.

Previously, she worked as a research consultant on the OECD’s crises and fragility team, overseeing work on financing in contexts of forced displacement.

She earned her master’s degree in international public management with concentrations in migration and African studies at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), Paris School of International Affairs.

Stand description

Fragility poses a major global threat to sustainable development and peace.

The ‘States of Fragility’ platform showcases, in a visually accessible and intuitive way, the OECD-curated data used to address this complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon.

Erik Forsberg

Intern at the OECD (France)

"States of fragility: visualising the OECD’s fragility framework"

Biography

Erik Forsberg is an intern at the crises and fragility team of OECDs development cooperationdirectorate as part of his studies at Paris School of International Affairs at Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), from which he is graduating with a master’s degree in international economic policy in June 2020.

He has a background in peace and conflict studies and economics from Uppsala University, and he has previously served as an intern at the Swedish delegation to the OECD.

Stand description

Fragility poses a major global threat to sustainable development and peace.

The ‘States of Fragility’ platform showcases, in a visually accessible and intuitive way, the OECD-curated data used to address this complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon.

Birger Morgenstjerne

Partner and managing director at Ferdio (Denmark)

"Data Viz project: the most comprehensive archive of data visualisations"

Biography

Working in the field of data visualisation and infographics as partner and consultant of the Copenhagen-based agency Ferdio.

This includes some of the biggest projects and clients in Scandinavia being in charge of consultancy, research, conceptualisation, copywriting, etc.

Stand description

Find the right visualisation, and get inspired on how to do it, with the help of 'DataViz project', which showcases all relevant and popular data visualisations.

Daniele Pezzatini

Tech lead and project manager at Bestiario Proyectos (Italy)

"Government revenue dataset explorer: an interactive data visualisation tool for an open dataset of the UN University"

Biography

Daniele Pezzatini is a computer scientist working at the crossroads of technology, interaction design, and data science.

He is currently collaborating with Bestiario on data-driven innovation projects for international companies and organisations.

He has a research background in human-computer interaction and multimedia analysis techniques.

Stand description

Create a customised data visualisation using GRD Explorer tool, which renders the cross-country Government Revenue Dataset (GDR) more accessible and appealing to a range of users.

The tool is the joint creation of UNU-WIDER and Bestiario.

Antti Pelanteri

Economics database administrator at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) (Finland)

"Government revenue dataset explorer: an interactive data visualisation tool for an open dataset of the UN University"

Biography

Antti Pelanteri is an economics database administrator at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research.

He holds a Master’s degree in social sciences from the University of Helsinki, Finland.

His research interests include economic development and inequality on a global scale.

He enjoys turning data into information and appreciates good visual representations of any topic.

Stand description

Create a customised data visualisation using GRD Explorer tool, which renders the cross-country Government Revenue Dataset (GDR) more accessible and appealing to a range of users.

The tool is the joint creation of UNU-WIDER and Bestiario.

Marco Cortella

Solution designer at Knowage — Engineering Ingegneria Informatica (Italy)

"DataViz and data analysis with Knowage"

Biography

Marco Cortella graduated in computer science with a thesis on Social Network Analysis.

He joined Knowage Labs (former SpagoBILabs), contributing with his full stack developing capabilities to the latest developments of SpagoBI suite and to the birth and growth of Knowage.

He is deeply involved in Knowage advocacy and digital transformation promotion all across Europe, contributing to FIWARE and OW2 communities, providing training and sharing his expertise in data visualisation and data analysis in schools and universities.

Stand description

Discover Knowage, an open source suite for modern business analytics, with a special focus on big data analytics and comprehensive support to rich and multi-source data analysis.

Constance Lecomte

Data analyst at the General Commission for Territorial Equality (France)

"The DataViz tool and its uses in the CGET: combining territorial and urban observation at national and local scales"

Biography

Constance Lecomte is in charge of data analysis at l’Observatoire des Territoires in the CGET (Commissariat Général à l’Égalité des Territoires).

She specialises in building interactive tools for decision support and has a particular interest in interactive and automatic cartography.

A cartographer by training, she previously worked in research laboratories in urban and social geography and contributed to different research programmes as an engineer in data analysis and cartography.

Stand description

See how this DataViz tool is supporting government to fight against territorial inequalities, develop and implement public policies adapted to local specificities, as well as monitoring and communicating results.

Mélodie Martin

Cartographer at the General Commission for Territorial Equality (France)

"The DataViz tool and its uses in the CGET: combining territorial and urban observation at national and local scales"

Biography

Mélodie Martin is a cartographer for the scientific resources and promotion team in the CGET (Commissariat Général à l’Égalité des Territoires).

Expert in spatial data analysis and representation, her mission is to support the national planning policies all along the decision process, and to share information using maps and design.

She previously worked for EU projects for territorial diversity and cohesion (Espon TeDi and ANR MAILLE), and on the Greater Paris project.

Stand description

Helga Mondesir

Assistant chief of the department at the General Commission for Territorial Equality (France)

"The DataViz tool and its uses in the CGET: combining territorial and urban observation at national and local scales"

Biography

Helga Mondesir is the assistant chief of the department in charge of characterizing urban deprived neighbourhoods at CGET (Commissariat Général à l’Égalité des Territoires).

She has spent 20 years developing GIS and using territorial data to help local and national authorities to define, manage and assess public policies.

Stand description

Konstantinos Gkoumas

Programme officer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EU)

"Visualising transport innovation: exploring different approaches"

Biography

Konstantinos Gkoumas is a civil engineer with a PhD in transport from the Sapienza University of Rome.

He is currently a programme officer at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, developing tools and methodologies to advance the analytical capabilities of the transport research innovation monitoring and information system (TRIMIS).

He focuses on the creation of an inventory and the reporting on future and emerging technologies in the transport sector.

Stand description

Explore how various visualisations can be used for analysing technology trends and for communicating complex data in a concise, structured way — with examples based on the Transport Research Innovation Monitoring and Information System (Trimis).

Mitchell van Balen

Programme officer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EU)

"Visualising transport innovation: exploring different approaches"

Biography

Mitchell van Balen develops the transport research innovation monitoring and information system (TRIMIS) at the European Commission.

He is particularly interested in developing reproducible and interactive data visualisations that appeal to a broad audience.

He has a background in transport economics and a PhD from the University of Brussels (VUB).

Stand description

Livia Simongini

Manager at Prometeia (Italy)

"VizMyCity"

Biography

Livia Simongini graduated from Florence University, where she obtained a II level University master's degree in economics from the Collegio Carlo Alberto, Turin.

In Prometeia, she conducts territorial analysis, carrying out studies on the socioeconomic characteristics of regions and cities.

She focuses on the attractiveness of territories and their potential based on key factors such as innovation, culture, social capital and tourism.

Stand description

Discover the brand new VizMyCity tool, which aims to support local authorities in communicating with citizens, while being user-friendly and flexible so that citizens can extract the information they need.

Giacomo Cotignano

Economist at Prometeia (Italy)

"VizMyCity"

Biography

Giacomo Cotignano holds an M.Sc. in economics from Nova University of Lisbon and LUISS University of Rome.

He is involved in research projects focusing on economic impacts regarding Italian industrial sectors and sectoral value chains in Europe.

He plays an integral part in processing data and designing interactive dashboards for Prometeia’s data visualisation platform, MIO.

Stand description

Valentina Alberti

Researcher and graphic designer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EU)

"Visualising composite indicators"

Biography

Researcher and graphic designer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, currently she deals with culture and creativity in European cities.

She is an architect and she a PhD in regional and urban planning.

Passionate about visual communication, Valentina explores communication techniques to simplify complex topics for non-experts.

She worked on several visuals and infographics for JRC projects, among others: the screening for high emission reduction potential on air tool (SHERPA), the territorial dashboard, the cultural and creative cities monitor, the open access campaign, and the knowledge centre for food fraud.

Stand description

Discover JRC’s interactive online tools allowing data exploration and building stories based on the composite indicators used to measure complex phenomena.

Ludivine Baudouin

Digital innovation coordinator and statistical editor at the OECD (France)

"SDG Pathfinder: a digital tool to discover key policy content related to the sustainable development goals"

Biography

Ludivine Baudouin is leading projects in digital content management and innovation at the OECD's public affairs and communications directorate.

Her most recent accomplishment is the beta release of the SDG Pathfinder, a digital tool to discover key policy content related to the sustainable development goals.

She is currently enrolled in the executive master in digital humanities 2018-2020 at Sciences Po Paris.

Stand description

Get quick access to content related to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) with the SDG Pathfinder, an open digital discovery tool, powered by the OECD.

Damien Bouquet

Chief executive officer at VIZU ALL (France)

"How digital damaged data visualisation?"

Biography

After graduating first at Toulouse School of Economics in decision support and information systems with a Master’s degree (2009) and after a 5 years’ business intelligence analyst experience, Damien Bouquet founded the data visualisation start-up VIZU ALL 4 years ago to facilitate access to custom-made data visualisation within big companies.

To go further and democratise DataViz, VIZU ALL will release its data drawing software, FastBrick, in January 2020.

Stand description

VIZU ALL is advocating for the democratisation of data visualisation, and will showcase FastBrick, which they developed to provide an accessible tailored DataViz-making-tool to the layman with no coding experience.

Daria Squillante

Researcher at the Italian National Insititute of Statistics — ISTAT (Italy)

‘Show, don’t tell!’ Storyshowing for beautiful numbers

Biography

Daria Squillante has a PhD in demography, graduated cum laude in political sciences and in psychological sciences and techniques.

She is a researcher and responsible at ISTAT for the strategical area ‘statistical communication’.

An academic assistant for the chair of demography and the chair of planning and direction of personal care services, she is a writer and screenplayer in her parallel life.

Stand description

Watch entertaining — but scientifically rigorous — ‘statistical videos’, developed using ‘storyshowing’ as a communication product aimed at disseminating knowledge in a ‘pop way’.

Danny Volkaerts

Data analytics teacher at the University Colleges Leuven-Limburg

"Data lifecycle: from raw data to interactive visualisation"

Biography

Danny Volkaerts is graduated in 2010 as master of science in bio-engineering.

He is experienced in the application of machine learning on bio-medical data and teaches data analytics at UC Leuven-Limburg.

He guides businesses and research groups in implementing open source software (data analytics).

Stand description

Remove the need to create visualisations in JavaScript by generating interactive visualisations in webpages with the use of Elixir and R or Python.

Wannes Fransen

Applied information technology at the University Colleges Leuven-Limburg

"Data lifecycle: from raw data to interactive visualisation"

Biography

Wannes Fransen graduated in 2018 as professional bachelor in applied information technology.

He is passionate about using the Elixir programming language.

Stand description

Remove the need to create visualisations in JavaScript by generating interactive visualisations in webpages with the use of Elixir and R or Python.

Jezabel Martinez Fabregas

Senior communications strategist at the Directorate-General for Informatics of the European Commission (EU)

"ISA² Programme, interoperability solutions for public administrations, businesses and citizens"

Biography

Jezabel Martinez Fabregas is the senior communications strategist of the ISA² Programme’s communications team.

With an extensive knowledge of interoperability and consolidated background in strategic communications, she spreads the word of interoperability and its benefits amongst the Member States.

Stand description

The ISA² Programme stand will show how interoperability solutions can help public administrations, businesses and citizens exchange data in a secure and efficient way, thus enabling better digital public services cross border and cross sector.

Additionally, it will allow participants to learn more about the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) the roadmap to digitalise public administrations in Europe.

Mirko Lorenz

Co-chief executive officer and co-founder at Datawrapper (Germany)

"When to use charting tools"

Biography

Mirko Lorenz is a journalist, innovation manager in EU research projects and a founder of Datawrapper, a successful charting tool from Europe, used by newsrooms, statistics offices and universities around the world.

Stand description

An overview of where data publication benefits and where it is better work with data manually.

Pavel Zbornik

Intelligence analyst, common data and knowledge management service at the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission (EU)

"Horizon Dashboard - the EU research and innovation funding programme data at your fingertips"

Biography

Pavel Zbornik works as intelligence analyst at the Directorate-General Research and Innovation of the European Commission.

In this function, he contributes to reporting and statistics of EU Research and Innovation Funding Programmes, as well as providing analysis about trends and derive insights for support policy making.

He has a background in electrical engineering from the Czech Technical University in Prague.

Stand description

Access to real-time data and explore EU research and innovation funding programmes with the Horizon Dashboard, the intuitive, flexible and interactive platform developed by Directorate-General Research and Innovation of the European Commission.

Richard South

Head of business development at Flourish (United Kingdom)

"Beautiful, interactive data storytelling with Flourish"

Biography

Richard South is responsible for taking Flourish to new customers.

He has a number of tech start-up successes behind him, most recently as the first employee and vice-president of sales & marketing for Squared Up, a visualisation tool for enterprise IT.

Stand description

The stand will show run rolling demonstrations of the Flourish data story telling platform.

Duncan Clark

Co-founder at Flourish (United Kingdom)

"Beautiful, interactive data storytelling with Flourish"

Biography

Duncan Clark is the co-founder of Flourish, prior to which he ran an award-winning data visualisation agency (Kiln), was a data journalist (Guardian), author (Profile Books) and publisher (Rough Guides/Penguin), with a focus on technology, energy and climate change. Duncan is an honorary researcher at UCL.

Stand description

The stand will show run rolling demonstrations of the Flourish data story telling platform.

Henric Anselm

Policy senior assistant at Eurostat (EU)

"Visit the Eurostat stand and get familiar with European statistics and digital publications"

Biography

Henric Anselm is policy senior assistant, at the Eurostat dissemination and user support unit, user relations.

Stand description

Visit the Eurostat stand and get familiar with European statistics and Digital Publications.

Test the Eurostat visualisations, mobile apps and extraction tools.

Play the Eurostat virtual-reality game based on European statistics.

Posters

Xavier Gimenez Baqués

Software engineer specialised in data visualisation at SIRIS Academic (Spain)

"The ToscanaOpenResearch portal: informing citizens and enhancing the research and innovation system in Tuscany"

Biography

Xavier Gimenez Baqués holds a postgraduate in data visualisation from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, as well as a degree in multimedia engineering from La Salle University.

He has wide experience in leading, developing and designing interactive and technical projects.

He has a passion for problem solving and mixing technology and creativity in the projects.

His main goals are related to the use of interaction design, visualisation techniques and data analysis and, with this, to discover patterns that would otherwise be too complex to find, as well as to efficiently communicate existing knowledge.

Poster description

Get inspired by the ambitious ToscanaOpenResearch portal, used by the regional public authority and integrating interactive data visualisation to communicate and valorise its research and innovation system for citizens and stakeholders.

Annamaria Donnarumma

Consultant at SIRIS Academic (Spain)

"The ToscanaOpenResearch portal: informing citizens and enhancing the research and innovation system in Tuscany"

Biography

Annamaria Donnarumma is a consultant at SIRIS Academic, currently focusing on projects aimed at supporting decision-making through data and evidence-based analyses.

She holds a PhD in astronomy, and is interested in fostering effective communication and strategic thinking through the innovative use of data.

Poster description

Dániel Samu Nagy

Researcher at the Hungarian National Assembly (Hungary)

"Infographics in the Hungarian National Assembly for MPs and the public"

Biography

Dániel Samu Nagy is a researcher at information service for MPs, Hungarian National Assembly.

He holds a PhD in history and prepares research papers, infobriefings, and creates infographics as well.

Poster description

Even non-professional can develop their visual abilities and create an infographic, according to our contributors.

Gain practical information about how to start making infographics and develop your knowledge in data visualisation, from initial development steps to usage data.

Tünde Simsa

Researcher at the Hungarian National Assembly (Hungary)

"Infographics in the Hungarian National Assembly for MPs and the public"

Biography

Tünde Simsa is researcher at Information Service for MPs in the Hungarian National Assembly.

She is specialized in Central Europe’s history as well as political theory and, as a researcher, she creates background papers and analysis with visual content.

Poster description

Even non-professional can develop their visual abilities and create an infographic, according to our contributors.

Gain practical information about how to start making infographics and develop your knowledge in data visualisation, from initial development steps to usage data.

Tiziana Laureti

Professor economic statistics at the Tuscia University (Italy)

"Communicating uncertainty in key official statistics"

Biography

Tiziana Laureti is a full professor of Economic Statistics Department of Economics, Engineering, Society and Business Organization, University of Tuscia-Viterbo. She has been a member of the Governing Body of the Italian National Statistical System, which performs steering functions in relation to statistical offices and resolves upon the National Statistical Programme (for the period 2015-2019).

She was elected member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) since 2012, member of the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS), International Environmetrics Society (TIES) and the Italian Statistical Society (SIS) since 2004.

She is a member of the Editorial Board of AESTIMATIO, the IEB International Journal of Finance Managing and serves several international journals as reviewer.

Poster description

Official economic statistics are inevitably uncertain due to sampling and non-sampling errors, whereas there is a common tendency of policy analysts to project its implausible certitude.

Lack of guidance can lead users to misinterpret the information provided.

Is there an alternative to measure and communicate this data uncertainty?

Get to know Comunikos project at Eurostat, which shares different techniques for visualising uncertainty in official economic statistics and assess their effectiveness in conveying meaningful information to the users.

Edwin de Jonge

Methodologist at Statistics Netherlands (The Netherlands)

"Communicating uncertainty in key official statistics"

Biography

Edwin de Jonge is a statistical consultant and methodologist at Statistics Netherlands, who has expertise providing consulting services in data visualisation, big data, machine learning and R programming problems.

Poster description

Official economic statistics are inevitably uncertain due to sampling and non-sampling errors, whereas there is a common tendency of policy analysts to project its implausible certitude.

Lack of guidance can lead users to misinterpret the information provided.

Is there an alternative to measure and communicate this data uncertainty?

Mojca Bavdaž

Associate professor at the University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business (Slovenia)

"Visualisation of gender data in official statistics"

Biography

Mojca Bavdaž, PhD, University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business, has been working in official statistics for two decades, be it for teaching, research or consultancy.

She is interested in visualisation in questionnaire design, and as part of dissemination and use of official statistics.

Poster description

Colour can be a powerful tool in data visualisation for differentiating among categories, but surprisingly they may also communicate unintended messages. Official statistics presents data by gender in all sorts of fields, and our expert will show what colour these visualisations use to represent gender.

Jerneja Kos

Research assistant at the University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business (Slovenia)

"Visualisation of gender data in official statistics"

Biography

Jerneja Kos, MSc, has background in sociology and passion for IT.

She is currently a research assistant at University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business, where she has been collaborating on projects related to official statistics and data visualisation.

Poster description

André Oosterman

Senior economist at the European Investment Bank (EU)

"European Investment Bank water sector lending by geographical area, 2014-2019"

Biography

André Oosterman is senior economist in the water management of the European Investment Bank.

In this capacity, he is responsible for the economic and financial analysis of water sector projects across the globe.

Poster description

Through this real-life example, learn how EIB, the world’s largest multilateral water sector lender, uses infographics for communication purposes in the public sector.

Kyriaki Tsilika

Assistant professor at the University of Thessaly (Greece)

"Visual analysis of transboundary air pollution data in European area"

Biography

Kyriaki Tsilika holds a PhD in applied mathematics from the faculty of engineering of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Her work has centred on the development and the implementation of programming techniques in CAS environments to simultaneously assess results of optimisation conditions, outputs of stability analyses in economic systems, symbolic econometric computations, statistical tests, visualisation of trading relations and regional trade agreements, cost/benefit analyses in environmental problems.

Some of her current research is focused on visual analytics and visualisation (static and dynamic). Tsilika's research findings have appeared in several national and international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.

Poster description

Different visualisation modules are used to reproduce the global pollution network and identify the biggest sources and sinks of pollution.

Visual modelling helps to understand the linkages and interconnections in the transboundary pollution network.

Our interactive outputs give the options to bring out the crucial actions of the global source-receptor air pollution scheme and highlight the top emitters or receptors of pollution.

Bogdan Micu

Statistical officer at Eurostat (EU)

"A quintile-based visualisation of income inequality"

Biography

Bogdan-Alexandru Micu is a quantitative-oriented social scientist, with more than 15 years in senior positions in opinion and market research.

Since 2015 at Eurostat, he has been working on advanced estimates of income inequality indicators.

He is interested in prospective and speculative social science, and visual sensemaking for strategic insights.

Poster description

Discover a data visualisation project in the European Union institutions which has grown into a visual analytics tool — a novel way of comparing income distributions across time and geographical units.

The contribution is an illustration of both intra- and inter-country income inequality, as well as its evolution from 2006 to date, for EU Member States.

It is a distributional approach, based on positional indicators (income quintiles), and can answer questions like whether inequality in one country has increased because lowest incomes have decreased or stagnated, or because highest incomes have increased more.

Conradin Bolliger

Head of unit at Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture – Market Analysing Unit (Switzerland)

"Visualising food value chains"

Biography

Conradin Bolliger heads the Market Analysing Unit at the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture.

Previously, he was responsible for marketing and procurement of the company’s private labels for sustainability at COOP, Switzerland’s largest retailer.

After studying agricultural economics, he obtained a PhD in consumer research at ETH Zürich.

In his spare time he enjoys being with his family, is a junior handball coach and enjoys dancing to Latin American music.

Poster description

See how you can increase market understanding and transparency in a specific market sector, with the help of infographics presenting the entire value-added chain — as applied to the Swiss food market.

Cornel Herrmann

Deputy of unit at Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture – Market Analysing Unit (Switzerland)

"Visualising food value chains"

Biography

Cornel Herrmann is a market observer at the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture and regularly analyses the agricultural markets in the egg and meat sectors.

He studied agricultural economics and data science at ETH Zürich.

In addition to his affinity for data analysis, Cornel loves to dance rock n’roll acrobatics and plays video games from time to time.

Poster description

Olivera Stojanovic

Research assistant and doctoral student at Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück (Germany)

"Visualising the spread of infectious diseases using public health data"

Biography

Olivera Stojanovic is currently finishing her PhD studies in cognitive science in Osnabück (Germany), where she focuses on predictive analytics, statistical modeling and data visualisation.

She will present how to use public health data to visualise the spread of infectious diseases.

Poster description

Explore how data visualisation techniques can bring added value to public health data for epidemiologists, data scientists and the public; a use case of public data for good and of increasing transparency between data-collecting institutions and individuals.

Franz Trautinger

Head of communication at City of Vienna — Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics (Austria)

"Wiener Melange — Who lives where in Vienna? Residential mix by place of birth."

Biography

Franz Trautinger studied political science and romance studies in Vienna and Madrid.

He works at the City of Vienna’s Department for Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics as head of the communication unit.

Poster description

See an example of how public administrations can engage in public debates using data, data visualisation and storytelling — and discover an innovative approach to visualise spatial demographic data.

Ramon Bauer

Deputy head of statistics Vienna at City of Vienna — Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics (Austria)

"Wiener Melange — Who lives where in Vienna? Residential mix by place of birth."

Biography

Ramon Bauer is a population geographer.

His research interests include spatial demography as well as data communication and visualisation.

He works at the City of Vienna’s Department for Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics as deputy head of statistics Vienna.

Poster description

Roman Seidl

Data scientist at City of Vienna - Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics (Austria)

"Wiener Melange — Who lives where in Vienna? Residential mix by place of birth."

Biography

Roman Seidl is an urbanist and data scientist.

His research focuses on demographics, housing markets, tourism, mobility, energy, and time use.

He works at the basic research section of the City of Vienna’s Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics Department and lectures at the Vienna University of Technology and Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Plenary speeches

Rudolf Strohmeier

Director-General at the Publications Office of the EU

"Opening speech"

Biography

Marc Hansen

Minister for the Civil Service, Minister for Relations with Parliament, Minister Delegate for Digitalisation, Minister Delegate for the Administrative Reform of the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

"Keynote address"

Biography

Victoria Boeck

Open data researcher at Technologiestiftung Berlin (Germany)

"Open data and data visualisation: building the virtuous cycle"

Biography

Session

Marc Wilikens

Head of unit at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EU)

"Visualisation for knowledge communication: a holistic approach"

Biography

Session

Xaquín Veira González

Visual journalism and data visualisation consultant at Xaquín G.V. (Spain)

"Honest visuals: ethics in data visualisation"

Biography

Session

Benjamin Wiederkehr

Managing director and founding partner at Interactive Things (Switzerland)

"Visualising data for exploration and explanation — and everything in between"

Biography

Session

Juan Arevalo Torres

Chief executive officer at Randbee consultants (Spain)

"The art of spatial data storytelling"

Biography

Session

Caroline Goulard

Chief executive officer at Dataveyes (France)

"Making the invisible visible"

Biography

Session

Barthélémy von Haller

Senior software engineer at CERN — European Organization for Nuclear Research (Switzerland)

"Visualising the cosmos: from the tiniest scales to the massive black holes"

Biography

Session

Jeremi Niedziela

Researcher at CERN — European Organization for Nuclear Research (Switzerland)

"Visualising the cosmos: from the tiniest scales to the massive black holes"

Biography

Session

Oliver James

Chief scientist at DNEG — Double Negative (United Kingdom)

"Visualising the cosmos: from the tiniest scales to the massive black holes"

Biography

Session

Paul Hofheinz

President and co-founder of The Lisbon Council (Belgium)

"Closing words"

Biography

Thematic session: 1. Understanding policy

Annie White

Senior software product manager at Harvard’s Growth Lab (United States)

"Communicating complex economic topics for policymakers"

Biography

Session

Nil Tuzcu

Designer, The Atlas of Economic Complexity at Harvard’s Growth Lab (United States)

"Communicating complex economic topics for policymakers"

Biography

Session

Joanna Sleigh

Bioethics researcher at ETH Zürich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (Switzerland)

"Visualising ethical frameworks and policy documents in digital spaces"

Biography

Session

Manuel Schneider

Bioethics researcher at ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (Switzerland)

"Visualising ethical frameworks and policy documents in digital spaces"

Biography

Session

Arnold Platon

Minister for the Civil Service,
Minister for Relations with Parliament,
Minister Delegate for Digitalisation,
Minister Delegate for the Administrative Reform of the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg