The UN 2030 Agenda is currently midway through its implementation phase, however, recent global scale reviews have highlighted the need to improve pace of efforts to ensure the Sustainability Goals are achieved. With the UN’s Summit of the Future to be held this year in 2024, there is a strong consensus and desire to reinforce UN as well as other governance structure and renew commitments to advance SDGs by 2030. At this crucial juncture, world faces escalating challenges, from persistent poverty and hunger to the alarming repercussions of climate change, creating enormous challenges that need to be addressed to implement Sustainable Development. In 2023, the United Nations pointed out that out of nearly 140 assessable Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), half of them had moderate or severe deviations from expectations, with over 30% of the targets showing no progress or even regressing compared to the 2015 benchmark. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the world to unite and take transformative actions and to develop multilateral solutions to address the complex, interconnected, and dynamic challenges.

Big data as backbone of the rapidly advancing and transforming digital landscape emerges as a valuable resource, offering macroscopic, dynamic, and objective monitoring capabilities of complex and interconnect processes. In recent years, big data has showcased its potential to drive progress across the SDGs, facilitating multidimensional analysis, identifying key barriers to sustainable development, fostering innovative solutions and clarifying the direction for future development.

We are excited to convene the 4th International Forum on Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (FBAS 2024) in Beijing, China, from September 6 to 8, 2024, to foster collaboration and consensus in leveraging big data for sustainable development. The forum will organize dialogue and exchange activities under the theme of "Future 7 Years: Big Data Driving Transformative Actions to Achieve SDGs". Throughout the forum, we will explore sustainable development goals including zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, clean energy, sustainable cities and communities, climate action, life below water, life on land, and collaborative partnerships focused on advancing towards SDGs. The agenda includes in-depth discussions on the latest big data and AI technologies, comprehensive solutions, application demonstrations, and regional sustainable development experiences.

On behalf of the FBAS 2024, and during this critical moment in time when all parties in the world need to regain confidence and explore opportunities, I extend our heartfelt invitation to experts, professionals, practioners and scholars from around the globe—representing science, engineering, education, management, enterprises, and social organizations to converge in Beijing and share with us latest achievements and practical insights in the realm of big data for sustainable development, fostering collaboration and charting the course for the "second half" of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.