The Data Professional Technical Forum (DPTF) is a series of virtual workshops, launched in 2021, where Australian Public Service (APS) agencies share their experience in the technical aspects of working with data. For more information, please see the previous APS Data Professional Stream News article about the DPTF.
The first year of DPTF workshops was a great success, with audience members praising the forum as an effective avenue for connecting data professionals across the APS, learning about common technical challenges and developing a greater awareness of the external context for their own agency’s data usage.
It is great to see DPTF workshops going from strength to strength, and now involving departments and agencies across the Commonwealth. Key goals of the Data Profession are to build technical expertise and networks among technical experts across the APS, and the DPTF workshops are contributing admirably to these goals.
– Dr David Gruen AO, Australian Statistician and Head of the APS Data Profession
Another large audience tuned in to the first DPTF workshop of 2022, which was held in February on the topic of machine learning for informing policy. Data professionals from the Department of Home Affairs, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australian Bureau of Statistics and Department of the Treasury, in collaboration with the Gradient Institute, presented their experiences with different aspects of the topic, including the ethical challenge of mitigating data, algorithmic and human biases, and using machine learning as a tool for causal inference. If you missed it, or any of the workshops from 2021, the recordings can be viewed on the APS Data Professional Stream video library.
The DPTF workshop schedule for 2022 is shaping up to include an array of interesting topics, with data professionals from across the APS sharing their experiences in working with data in a government setting. While some details are still to be confirmed, the current DPTF workshop schedule for 2022 can be downloaded here
If your agency would like to be involved in proposing workshop topics, would be willing to share its data expertise with other agencies, or if you have any further enquiries about the DPTF, please email kristen.stone@abs.gov.au or ying.yang@ato.gov.au.