17th World Productivity Congress, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (2015)

Halifax Declaration

We the members of the global productivity and Big Data communities who have gathered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada from 19th to 21st October, 2015. have been informed and inspired by three days of discussion, debate and deliberation on the Congress Theme of Big Data for Productivity: Everything Changes”.

Through the conference sub themes of Big Data for Health, Smart Cities, the Internet of Things and Business productivity, we are intrigued and enticed by the promise of Big Data to transform key factors in our world – healthcare, agriculture, business, citizenship. We have been inspired by leading thinkers to dream of a future where our use of Big Data transforms our ability to address key societal concerns – how do we feed the growing world; how do we power a post-oil world; how do we eradicate poverty, how do we make the
world safer and more secure?

At the same time, we have been reminded of the need to establish appropriate control and governance of the data generated by our various and numerous interactions with the ubiquitous data devices and sensors of the modern world, to ensure ‘our’ data is used for our good.

As a result, we pledge our individual and collective commitment to move forward the realisation of the potential of Big Data for change, for Innovation and for productivity development whilst lobbying for increasing ‘openness’ of data and building governance structures and processes that ensure the benefits of Big Data are shared equitably across national, ethnic and social boundaries.

As ‘Everything Changes’ we need to ensure that ‘Everybody Wins’.