This issue of the newsletter brings a lot of updated conference news, as we head into a very intensive month of conferences. Best wishes to all the organizers in New Zealand, Australia and New Caledonia for the smooth running of their meetings.

Our own conference is also coming up in just over three months in Dunedin. There will be a strong focus on Statistics in Science. Members have also indicated that there are statistical topics in Education they wish to address in depth, as would be expected since these issues have had a high profile in the media over recent months. In addition to the details given on page 1, there will also be a Monday night activity planned for young statisticians, which will be right into Dunedin’s famous student culture. Details will soon appear on the conference website.

I am grateful to William Warren, a member of 50 years standing who is now resident in Canada, for the historical reminiscences he sent (pages 8-9), and to David Vere-Jones for providing a photo taken during Boris Gnedenko’s visit to Australasia.

Thanks also to Graeme Wake and Ken Russell for material they supplied on January’s MISG at Albany. Their particular point is that it would be great to have more participation from statisticians at future MISGs.

Reflections on “Visions of Futuristic Statistical Methodologies”

Readers of the NZSA Newsletter will have been aware that much help towards the organization of the International Statistical Conference (“Visions of Futuristic Statistical Methodologies”) scheduled for Sri Lanka just before New Year was coming from New Zealand and Australia.

Ganesalingam (right) from Massey University was one of the main organizers and co-chair of the Programme Committee. Other main organizers were Prof Basil M de Silva, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, RMIT University, Australia, Prof Nitis Mukhopadhyay, Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA and Prof Tim Swartz, Department of Statistics & Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University,
Canada. Siva Ganesh, also from Massey, was on the International Organizing Committee, and both he and Ganesalingam were actively promoting the conference in NZ.

The conference was hosted by Postgraduate Institute of Science (PGIS), Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Basil M de Silva writes, "I think we should thank Prof Lakshman Dissanayake, Director, PGIS for doing a wonderful job of organizing local activities".

The purpose of the conference was to bring together statisticians from developed and developing countries to present their latest research findings in statistics and to interact and exchange ideas”. It was expected that this would “ultimately modernize the educational curricula for Sri Lankan students”.

As we know, this intention was only partially fulfilled, as the Boxing Day tsunami devastated the coast of the Indian Ocean. The travel plans of many of the overseas visitors were disrupted. However, Ganes reports that he was told “that the conference went on well”. (He was unable to attend, as he and his family were caught up in the tsunami at the Colombo-Hendala Beach Hotel - see Massey news.)

I thought it would be useful to give a little background information about statistics in Sri Lanka. There are 7 universities, all active in teaching statistics, with an active community of researchers. There are government departments of Census and Statistics. The Applied Statistics Association of Sri Lanka was formed in 1999. It has been publishing a journal since its inception. So it would appear that, despite the fledgling nature of the resident Sri Lanka community, they have shown great resilience in persevering with the conference.

What then of the “futuristic vision? It will certainly include a more global early-warning system for tsunamis. And no doubt the stimulus of the interaction between practitioners from developing and developed countries will continue, if less formally, and the benefits (along with the problems) of modernization will be integrated into such developing economies, where statistical practices are perhaps more able to make quantum contributions. The imperatives of life leave little opportunity to lament what might have been.

I am grateful to Ganesalingam and Basil de Silva for help in compiling this article.

A warm welcome to 15 new members of the NZSA, 11 of whom are new student members from NZ or Australia who receive free first year’s membership.

Echo Wang, Xiaoni Ma, Sumita Pinge, Reza Pakyari, Qin Song,
Mark Wheldon, Julie Wolak, Chris Wang, Glenda Young, Hiu Yan,
Celia Chan, Alokananda Maitra, Pauline Stuart, Michael Manning,
Vishal Goundar, Debbie Leader

To join the NZSA, visit http://nzsa.rsnz.org/form.php.