Digital data collection is going to speed up the process of gathering population data in Egypt during the 2017 census, starting this month.
Fujitsu announced today that it will be supporting the Egyptian government in its first ever digital census. Fujitsu will be providing its Stylistic tablet devices along with data center services to collect and analyse the census data.
By automating and digitizing the census process it is expected that the time taken to carry it out will be greatly reduced, halving the time it takes to gather and evaluate data from Egypt’s population of around 94 million, as well as increasing data accuracy and reliability.
The Egyptian census takes place every five years. Starting in February and running over several months, the 2017 census is managed by Egypt’s official statistical agency, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). The final report is expected as soon as July 2017 – which will represent the fastest-ever turnaround for a census of this magnitude.
The tablet devices will be used to collect population data by census collectors who will be visiting Egyptian households. This data will be transferred to the data center by LTE/3G connections where it will be stored and analysed. The CAPMAS data center in Egypt went live in 2016, delivered and supported by Fujitsu.
Ayman Abdel Rahman, Managing Director of Fujitsu Egypt, said: “Supporting the census is a high-profile element of our role in helping digitalize services provided by the Egyptian government, and we are excited to be supporting this milestone project. Holding a census is a huge undertaking when you think about the sheer volume of data that needs to be gathered, and the fact that it literally comes from all over the country. By digitalizing census processes, the government will save significant amounts of time. With its first fully digital census, Egypt is leading the way in making the gathering and evaluation of statistical data more efficient and reliable.”
AboBakr ElGendy, President of CAPMAS, comments: “As this is the first time that we will conduct a census that is fully based on digital technology and does not use paper ledgers at any stage in the process, it was very important to us to select a technology partner capable of supporting this major project. We selected Fujitsu because of its all-round capabilities – in building and operating our new data center, and the Fujitsu STYLISTIC tablets for their robust, lightweight design, high reliability and enterprise-grade security features.”
Ayman Abdel Rahman, Managing Director of Fujitsu Egypt, said: “Supporting the census is a high-profile element of our role in helping digitalize services provided by the Egyptian government, and we are excited to be supporting this milestone project. Holding a census is a huge undertaking when you think about the sheer volume of data that needs to be gathered, and the fact that it literally comes from all over the country. By digitalizing census processes, the government will save significant amounts of time. With its first fully digital census, Egypt is leading the way in making the gathering and evaluation of statistical data more efficient and reliable.”
Once the census has been completed the Egyptian government plans to donate the Fujitsu tablets to schools for use in the classroom.
