Oriented on making people closer

Maya AMANMURADOVA

The upcoming population and housing census of Turkmenistan in 2022 encouraged Dovlet Otuzov, 4th year student at the Oguz Khan University of Engineering Technologies, to create SapSanaw software, which simplifies the process of entering data into the register and their processing.

Now, the census is done manually, which involves a lot of effort for its implementation, monitoring, and further counting and analyzing the results. Digitization of the whole procedure is designed to save public funds and time of the census takers, as well as to reduce paper consumption.

Dovlet Otuzov developed SapSanaw software for both smartphones and tablets, and for computers, so that the census takers and analysts are united into one network for joint registration activities and inter-connection.

The program has an intuitively simple interface, but the young developer suggests conducting several training workshops to master skills of working with SapSanaw system.

According to Dovlet, in the course of the proposed work, the system will be fully automated, which will ease and quick report writing capacity and other necessary paper procedure.

Turkmenistan is actively involved in digitalization process and sharing experience in collecting statistical data with colleagues from other countries where electronic and online population censuses have already been tested. Their implementation revealed certain advantages of the system.

Firstly, as already mentioned the use of electronic gadgets reduces paper consumption and allows using public funds more efficiently.

Secondly, the use of gadgets can reduce the average time of the inquiry of each resident. The system allows to ask questions where the answers will be “Yes/No” or to propose some options. To fill out such a questionnaire, as opposed to manual, it will be enough to press the necessary buttons and fields. There is also the possibility to check spelling, which reduces the number of typos.

Thirdly, the digitalization speeds up the interaction between the census takers and the base, saves time, which in turn has a positive effect on the coverage of the territory. The census takers can question more residents during the day while workload will be much less.

The use of the e-census is not difficult for those who are “not gadgets-friendly”. The census takers who have undergone special trainings will themselves enter into the questionnaire all the information they are provided with.

Of course, SapSanaw system requires some improvements and field tests. The program will have its pilot census test, which is usually held before the main events.