Looked at through the lens of inclusive data, the overall story of the Festival & Expo feels rooted in a single idea: that technology, AI, statistics, and space systems are ultimately about people. Across the agenda, there's a strong focus not just on innovation itself, but on who gets to shape these systems, who benefits from them, and what kinds of leadership and partnerships are needed to make them more equitable and accountable.
For someone coming from the Data Values and inclusive data world, or interested in this space, the Festival & Expo offers a rare chance to connect the big conversations around AI, digital transformation, and sovereignty back to community voices, public participation, trust, and long-term investment in human capability. It also feels like a moment to make visible something that often gets lost in these rooms: that young people and communities across the Global South are not just future participants in these systems — they are already building, governing, and challenging them today.
Sessions not to miss
Plenary on Inclusive Data (June 2, 11 am) This positions inclusive data not as a side conversation, but as central to the future of AI, technology, and governance. It reflects a broader shift happening globally toward recognising that innovation without inclusion can reinforce existing inequalities — and a plenary slot signals that this argument is gaining ground.
Youth Plenary: The Future Is Already Here (June 3, 9:30 am) What makes this session worth attending is that it moves beyond symbolic youth engagement. It treats young people as people already shaping data, statistics, and space systems today — connecting directly to growing conversations around leadership pathways, intergenerational governance, and investing in human capability as infrastructure.
From Records to Results: Unlocking Administrative Data for Official Gender Statistics (June 3, 4 pm) This session moves beyond high-level discussion and gets into the real governance, trust, and institutional challenges of using administrative data responsibly. It's exciting to see interoperability, gender-responsive statistics, and accountability being connected directly to questions of equity, power, and public trust — rather than treated as purely technical problems.
Lightning Talks | Stories of Inclusion: Using Data to Make Everyone Count (June 3, 4 pm) This session grounds inclusion in real stories, lived experience, and practical examples of how data can make marginalised communities more visible. The talks reflect a broader shift toward community-led, intersectional, and people-centred approaches — particularly around disability, youth participation, and nontraditional data sources. It also connects technical conversations back to accountability, representation, and local power in a way that much of the programme doesn't.
Activities in the Inclusion Pavilion (throughout the event) Drop in to the Inclusion Pavilion to talk to partners and peers about inclusive data, join flash talks and takeovers to learn from practitioners, take part in live design clinics and get advice on how to make your survey, dataset, or project more inclusive, and more.
Explore the full program here.
One thing to watch for
One thing I’ll be watching closely across these sessions is how the Festival & Expo sessions and topics navigate the tension between innovation and inclusion. There’s a growing push globally to scale AI, digital systems, and administrative data use quickly, but many of these conversations are still grappling with questions around trust, representation, governance, and power. The question is whether speakers move beyond commitments and talk honestly about what it takes, institutionally and politically, to build systems that communities actually trust and benefit from.