On September 6, 2023, the 3rd International Forum on Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (FBAS 2023) was held in Beijing International Convention Center. It was organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CBAS), together with 32 Chinese research institutes and universities as co-organizers. Over 700 experts, UN and governmental officials, and stakeholders from 50 countries attended the 3-day conference.

The theme of FBAS 2023 is “Big Data Accelerating Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. It consists of 6 special sessions and 24 parallel sessions. At the opening ceremony on September 6, the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS) has released the world's first atlas of urban nighttime light remote-sensing data, providing support for the research on urban sustainable development. The atlas contains 10-meter resolution nighttime light data on 147 cities in 105 countries around the world.

Following the launch of the atlas, CBAS has then announced CBAS Fellowship 2023 laureates. Prof. Gretchen Kalonji, Dean of IDMR, together with 4 other distinguished officials, became the first 5 CBAS fellows.

After the opening ceremony, in the parallel session of Youth Responsibilities and Actions to Address SDGs Data and Information Gap, Prof. Gretchen Kalonji gave an opening remark and co-chaired the panel discussion. Dr. Andreas Nienkötter, assistant professor at IDMR gave a keynote speech entitled “AI driven high resolution debris flow risk assessment based on public remote sensing data”. Dr. Joseph Kimuli Balikuddembe, assistant professor at IDMR, joined the panel discussion and the youth poster session.

On September 7, as the Chair of CBAS International Advisory Committee (IAC), Prof. Gretchen Kalonji successfully organized the CBAS IAC Special Session. The theme for the IAC Session was “Promoting international collaborations on big data for sustainable development.” It was co-chaired by Prof. Kalonji and Prof. Ai Likun from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Science. The session consisted of 9 inspiring keynote speeches from and facilitated vibrant discussion on how to maximize the international impact of the work of CBAS, and what are the next concrete steps.

On September 8, Prof. Gretchen Kalonji gave a closing remark at the closing ceremony and Dr. Andreas Nienkötter won the Excellent Oral Presentation Award.