DownScale2013

Second International Workshop on Downscaling the Semantic Web

19th September 2013. Co-located with the Open Knowledge Conference, 16th-18th September  Geneva, Switzerland

Quick links

• Call for Papers [PDF]
• Lanyrd page
• Etherpad link: http://tinyurl.com/downscale2013pad
• Google docs folder (Abstracts etc)
• Proceedings (draft)

Program

DownScale2013 will be a half-day workshop (12.00-17.00h). The workshop will be held at Université de Genève, Uni Pignon campus, Room P_S06

Open Streetmap location: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/46.2057/6.1415

Time Title Presenter(s)

• 12.00-12:15 Welcome, logistics, etc. Victor de Boer and Martin Murillo
• 12:15-13:00 Keynote: Voice tech and Linked Data Stephane Boyera
• 13:00-13:45 VOICES demo and VOICES and Linked Data Anna Bon and Victor de Boer
• 13.45-14.15 The OLPC Project (One Laptop Per Child) : Recent Developments (2013) Jean Thiery
• 14.15 – 14:45 RDF stream processing engine for resource-constrained Colin Hardy, Wei Tai, Declan O’Sullivan
• 14.45 – 15:15 Roundtable: how do we downscale Linked Data? What is downscaling anyway? Chairs: Martin Murillo and Victor de Boer
• 15:15 – 15:45 Coffee Break -> joint with KnowEscape
• 15.45 – 16:15 Highly Available Entity Registry System for Poorly Connected Environments Christophe Guéret
• “On demand” Challenges and opportunities in downscaling services in extreme remote villages in the Amazon Martin Murillo
• 16.15 – 16:45 Towards open and semantic representation of a monitoring platform in the Peruvian Amazon River Quispe Tacas, Cesar Córdoba
• 16.45 – 17:15 Roundtable: A common research proposal: (Cloudy, etc.) Chairs: Martin Murillo and Victor de Boer
• 17.15 Closing

Workshop Description

Knowledge acquisition is a necessary and first condition for the empowerment of individuals. The need for appropriate and effective knowledge sharing is universal and global. Linked Data and Semantic technologies provide great potentials for carrying out those tasks. While mainstream Semantic Web research and development is moving vertiginously (focusing mainly on centralized and very powerful infrastructure and services in highly endowed application domains and regions where does not seem to be constraints), little work seems to be done on the applications of these and more appropriate technologies to less connected scenarios and challenged regions where new knowledge means day to day sustenance, survival, or to exercise rights.

Indeed, 4 Billion people who don’t have access to Internet or whose Internet connectivity is limited by bandwidth, quality of service, government or natural blockades, and modern device availability and affordability would welcome innovative solutions that are fit to their situation. The reality is that it will be tens of years until these subsets of the population enjoy the same level of Internet experience that most of the western population enjoys and takes it for granted.

Thus it is important to consider these stakeholders in the development of solutions that center around Linked Data. For that purpose, we identify three major aspects that need to be addressed when bringing Linked Data to everyone: Infrastructure, interfaces, and content sharing.

Infrastructure: Current design of platforms and utilities that make use of Linked Data assume the availability of a Web infrastructure encompassing centralized data-centers, high speed reliable Internet connectivity, and powerful modern client devices. The implications can be serious: If any of these necessary conditions is missing, end users are unable to be served of the benefits that Linked Data provides. This is not only relevant in natural disaster scenarios but also in the reality of daily life of billions of people. Solutions that are less centralized and do not require constant connectivity are required, among others.

Interfaces: Literacy and language barriers currently prevent many people to reap the benefits of the World Wide Web, including knowledge acquisition, participation, and the exchange of ideas. Data-driven solutions such as Linked Data, being language-agnostic, provide huge potentials for the implementation of relevant interfaces for information sharing services, allowing more people to reap its benefits. Voice technologies, icon/symbol-based interfaces, touch interfaces, all provide unprecedented potentials, in the context of their power and lowering cost.

Sharing of appropriate content: Context and culture awareness are key for developing (Linked) Open Data applications. To ensure local uptake, it is paramount to identify relevant knowledge that is valuable to a community or a group, including local language to symbol appropriatedness. While western-oriented approaches might seem globally applicable, the reality is otherwise. Linked data provides a huge potential in that context.
This half-day workshop seeks to provide first steps in exploring appropriate requirements, technologies, processes and applications for the deployment of semantic Web technologies in constrained scenarios, taking into consideration local contexts. For instance, making Semantic Web platforms usable under limited computing power and limited access to Internet, with context-specific interfaces.

Topics

Topics of the workshop include, but are not limited to:

• Offline linked data storage/synchronisation
• Energy-efficient storage of data, i.e. low resource demanding triple stores
• Application of Semantic Web to disaster data management
• Utilization of Off-line linked data in disaster scenarios
• Innovative linked data interfaces for illiterate and/or young users
• Solutions for sharing locally relevant knowledge
• Decentralised data management platforms
• Collaborative, decentralised, educational software

Keynote speaker

We are pleased to announce that Stephane Boyera from SB Consulting (SBC4D) will give a keynote speech.

Speaker bio: Stéphane founded SB Consulting in January 2009 and became Lead Program Manager at the World Wide Web Foundation. Stéphane has played an important role in the creation of the World Wide Web Foundation since 2008. In January 2009, he became Program Manager, responsible for the design and implementation of a new Foundation program targeted at leveraging the power of Web technologies to empower people in parts of the world where they need it most. Stéphane is also participating in different experts panel on the topic of Mobile and Social Development, including the World Bank Expert Panel on Mobile for Rural Development, the World Bank Expert Panel on mobile Health, and Vodafone Socio-economic Impact of Mobile (SIM) panel.

Submissions

We welcome:

• Short papers that present downscaled versions of previously published systems, accommodation of current mainstream technologies to constrained scenarios, specific cultures, languages, situations.
• Position and systems papers presenting novel ideas and approaches.
• Demo papers describing a working application or prototype that can be demonstrated during the workshop and fits its scope.
• Others

Short papers are expected to be 2-4 pages in length, not exceeding 5 pages. Submissions should be formatted using Springer’s Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) formatting guide. Submissions are managed via EasyChair:  https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=downscale2013

Important dates

• Abstract submission deadline: August 18, 201
• Notifications: August 30, 2013
• Camera ready version: Sept 6, 2013
• Workshop date: Morning, September 19, 2013

Sponsor

Downscale2013 is sponsored by The Network Institute 

Workshop Chairs

• Victor de Boer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands <v.de.boer@vu.nl>
• Martin Murillo, IEEE Data Connectivity for Rural Areas Initiative, Canada <murillo@ieee.org>

Program Committee

• Anna Bon, CIS Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Nederlands
• Victor de Boer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Stephane Boyera, SB Consulting, France
• Philippe Cudré-Mauroux, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
• Gianluca Demartini, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
• Maria Esther Vidal, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela
• Christophe Guéret, Data Archiving and Networked Services, Netherlands
• Bastien Guerry, Association OLPC France, France
• Jérôme David, INRIA Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes, France
• Laurens Rietveld, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Mathieu D’Aquin, KMi Open University, UK
• Andreas Thor, University of Leipzig
• Wolfgang Nejdl, L3S Research Center
• Ivana Marenzi, L3S Research Center
• Martin Murillo, IEEE Data Connectivity for Rural Areas Initiative, Canada
• Elena Simperl, KIT Karlsruhe
• Jean Thiery, Association OLPC France, France
• Arjen P. de Vries, CWI, Netherlands

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