Linked Data for Development A World Wide Semantic Web

Open Development Camp 2013

Christophe Guéret Marat Charlaganov Victor de Boer

@wwsemweb

Open Development Camp 2013

Christophe.Gueret@dans.knaw.nl Marat.Charlaganov@dans.knaw.nl

v.de.boer@vu.nl

Need for data sharing in rural developing areas

• Agriculture – Market Prices – Business opportunities – Support – Sharing indigenous

knowledge – Etc.

• Health – Prevention – Access to healthcare – Detection of disease

outbreak – etc.

• Education • Etc.

Based on Sbc4d.com

Barriers to the Internet

1. Technology: The lack of connectivity and electricity, cost of devices and cost of connection are limiting the adoption and usage of new technologies;

2. Capacity: Lack of time and resources limits the participation in data sharing processes. There are also issues related to low education levels, low capacity to interpret data, and illiteracy;

3. Relevance: Power balance, culture, apathy, lack of incentives, lack of interest and dis-empowerment are also all threats to having citizens engage in data sharing.

Stephane Boyera (SBC4D.com)

Information sharing should be made

1. usable on small, affordable, hardware deployed in various connectivity contexts;

2. accessible to individuals with varied cultural backgrounds / literacy levels;

3. relevant and directly useful to the target public they aim to empower.

Infrastructure

Interface

Relevancy

Infrastructure

• No internet,

• No bandwith,

• No computer,

• No electricity

• Cost – Total cost of ownership

Interface

• Low literacy

• Low education

• Small languages

• low capacity to interpret data, and illiteracy;

Relevancy

• No local content

• No local ownership

• Power balance, culture, apathy, lack of incentives, dis-empowerment

Subsecretario de transparencia, Alcaldes y la gente http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0S3juRQXR0 Max Rodriguez

Why the Semantic Web?

• Information (from NGOs) in silos – Specific products – Specific communities

• Lot of knowledge is lost due to lack of publication

Sharing (heterogeneous) knowledge is essential

• LD is well-suited because of: – Language-agnostic – Interface-agnostic – De-centralised authoring

• Slicing

– Re-usability • Local • Global

Img: flickr/elcovs

Web of Documents (WWW) Linked Documents

Web of Data Linked Data Semantic Web

New ways of connecting to the (Semantic) Web

Mobile phones

•No. 1 source of information •Interactive radio programs •Huge listening base

Radio

Low-powered hardware

• OLPC XO laptop

• Raspberry Pi

• Sheevaplug etc.

With the mainstream

• Dev. countries can leapfrog directly into the information age, – jumping many phases of

immature technologies

• Linked Data is mainstream

computer science research. – Let’s worry about the 4.5 B

unconnected prosumers now!

Img: flickr/n3v3rv0id

www.worldwidesemanticweb.org