UP Cebu and CV-RSC hold Webinar-Workshop on Introduction to Forecasting

Nov 30 2020

By Dr. Jimboy R. Albaracin

The Central Visayas-Regional Statistics Committee (CV-RSC) and UP Cebu’s Mathematics Program of the College of Science have organized a 4-day Webinar-Workshop on Introduction to Forecasting in celebration of the 31st National Statistics Month. The said webinar-workshop was conducted on November 10, 11, 13, and 16, 2020 via the video conferencing app, Zoom.

The four-day event that was spearheaded by Prof. Nelia S. Ereno, OIC-Dean of the College of Science, charged no registration and boasted an average attendance of about 90 participants per day. The resource speaker was Prof. Genelyn Ma. F. Sarte from the University of the Philippines Diliman School of Statistics. Among the topics discussed during the workshop are the introduction to time series, data preparations, and descriptive analysis of time series, and the statistical tests used. To help in solving and analyzing the time series problems and other data discussed during the workshop, the EViews software is used.

The event was originally scheduled on November 10-13, 2020 but due to the typhoon that affected the area where the resource speaker lived, the organizers had to postpone the third-day session of the webinar workshop. The third day was then scheduled on the 13th of November and the last day was moved to the 16th of November. NEDA RD Efren B. Carreon, in his opening remarks, cited some importance of forecasting in various sectors such as health, agriculture, and finance. He added that NEDA and DOT tried to forecast the probable effects of the extended lockdown due to COVID-19 on the regional economy.

In his closing remarks, on behalf of PSA 7 RD Ariel E. Florendo, Mr. Leopoldo Alfanta, Jr. thanked the Mathematics Program for organizing events related to Statistics. Earlier, Mr. Alfanta has given his opening remarks from another webinar organized by the UP Cebu’s Mathematics program. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the College of Science Mathematics Program has conducted a series of online training and webinars since October 2020.