Madrid Workshop Linked Data for Development (LD4D)

1. Linked Data for Development:
Managing and sharing knowledge in the
developing part of the world
Victor de Boer
Web and Media group, Computer Science,
The Network Institute , VU University Amsterdam
With significant input from
Christophe Guéret, Stefan Schlobach, Chris van Aart, Anna Bon, Hans
Akkermans, Nana Gyan, Stephane Boyera, Bernie Innocenti, Walter
Bender, Claudia Urrea, Amadou Tangara. Mary Allen,…

2. About me
Victor de Boer
Assistant professor
Web & Media Group, Network Institute
VU University Amsterdam
Semantic Technologies, Linked Data
Cultural Heritage
Digital History
Linked Data for Development

3. Almost half the world — over three billion
people — lives on less than $2.50 a day
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

4. ICT4D
Information and Communication Technology for Development
• Technology is a development tool
– Education
– Healthcare
– Livelihood
– etc.
• Leveraging communication
independently of physical/geographical
barriers
• Improving transparency, accountability,
efficiency of governments
• Developing nations can leapfrog directly
into the information age, jumping many
phases of immature technologies
Based on Sbc4d.com

6. But…
Not old computers, but new Computer Science

7. W4RA and Voice access to information

9. CAUTION!
DIGITAL DIVIDE AHEAD
Img: Internet World Stats

10. Digital divide in classrooms

11. Web Alliance for Regreening in Africa
Washington, 13-15 May 2013 11
W4RA : Information
exchange and
knowledge sharing in
rural Africa

12. World Wide Web
as Instrument of Empowerment
“Our success will be measured by how well we foster the
creativity of our children. Whether future scientists have
the tools to cure diseases.
Whether people, in developed and developing economies
alike, can distinguish reliable information from propaganda
or commercial chaff.
Whether the next generation will build systems that support
democracy and accountable debate.
I hope that you will join this global effort to advance the
Web to empower people.”
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web:

13. Can the Web (be made to) mean something for
knowledge sharing even under very
constraining conditions?
No internet, no computer, no electricity
Multitude of languages, levels of literacy

14. Information sharing needs
• 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

15. Web Access: Current State
Based on Sbc4d.com

16. Mobile phones

17. Many examples with SMS
Medic.frontlinesms.com

18. Low-literate users
• One of the grand challenges of ICT4D
• Especially prevalent among the rural poor
• Cf. Accessibility here
– Web design http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

19. Quiz
• Literacy in Zimbabwe
A. 0-30%
B. 30-50%
C. 50-70%
D. 70-100%

20. Quiz
• Literacy in Zimbabwe
A. 0-30%
B. 30-50%
C. 50-70%
D. 70-100% <- 91%

21. Quiz
• Literacy in Mali
A. 0-30%
B. 30-50%
C. 50-70%
D. 70-100%

22. Quiz
• Literacy in Mali
A. 0-30% <- 27.7% (20% among women)
B. 30-50%
C. 50-70%
D. 70-100%

23. Varies greatly in continent
Data.worldbank.com

24. Icon-based interfaces
• Example: Indrani Medhi
– Correlation between ease of using hierarchical menu’s
(even without text) and literacy

25. Interaction design for low-
literacy communities

26. Feature phones

27. Icon-based interaction

28. All phones: Voice-based user
interfaces
• Not exclusive to ICT4D (cf Siri, In-car systems)
• Very suitable for oral cultures

29. Voice menus for interactive
information access

30. • Integrate local community radios and mobile
ICT for knowledge sharing
• Better support and integrate local languages in
voice-based services
– Development of appropriate speech
elements (text-to-speech and Speech
recognition)
• Investigate self-sustainability
– Develop appropriate business models
– In collaboration with local communities.

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

32. ‘Small Languages’
• Large language populations: English, Spanish, German,
Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch…
– Large number of textual corpora available, great economic
value to localization
• Small languages: Frisian, Bambara (3M speakers),
– Small number of textual corpora available, some economic
value to localization
• Very small languages: Bomu (30K speakers)
– No textual corpora available, very low economic value to
localization

33. (adapted) Living Labs
• Involvement of local communities
– Trust and ownership
– Co-creation
• Bottom-up: field visits,
workshops, demos, roadshows,
etc
• Local communities: innovation co-
creation, “Living Labs” socio-
technical approach
– Use case gathering
– Observation and prototyping
– Test, adapt

34. From 20 use cases to 3 voice systems
Market Information
Citizen Journalism
Event Organiser
1 m-Milk ordering and delivery service of Tominian Milk producers and NGO
2 m-Tree protection alert service Sahel Eco Farmers and NGO
3 mobile-web Event organizer for vaccination of herds Farmers
4 m-Farmer-expert directory service Farmer organization
5 NGO info-line about legal issues in several languages Sahel Eco
6 Leave announcement or select your favourite song Radio
7 Shea butter and honey trading service Radio and Sahel Eco
8 Access radio programs and announcements on your phone Radio
9 Gourcy seed producers seed certification service Farmer organization
10 Radio questions and answers about agricultural issues Radio
11 m-collective purchase organizing service Local buyers
12 m-GIS regreening service Sahel Eco
13 m-Farmer social network Sahel Eco
14 mobile-web regional market system Farmer organization
15 Sahel Eco portal to Regreening and access to m-services Sahel Eco
16 m-event organizer for re-greening events Sahel Eco, farmers

35. M-agro Use Case
Context: Regreening in Africa

36. Local market data
Communiqué
GSM/Voice interface
Web Interface Text-To-Speech
Community radioSahel Eco operative
Buyers

37. “Slot and Filler” Text-to-Speech
English:
Bambara:
15 liters of offered by Zakari Diarra
15_ba.wav L_ba.wav Of_ba.wav
Spoken Language
Elements Repository
honey

38. Voice Interface design for
low-(computer) literate users
•Design guidelines (Deepak Chhettri)
•Evaluation experiment (Onur Akgun and Serdar Parlak)
•Access to DBpedia / Wikipedia (Rianne Nieland)

39. Deployment

40. Mobileusers
VOICES User Content
VOICES Platform & Toolbox
Telecom
Access
Radio
Program
Output
Web
Access
Mobile
Training Lab
Local ICT developers
Speech
Tools
Local end-users
Sustainable
business models
Mobile
access
PRODUCTS

42. Linked Data for Development

43. Web of Documents (WWW)
Linked Documents

44. Web of Data
Linked Data

45. 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

46. Sem.tech/Linked Data 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

48. Re-use: EcoMash
Henk Kroon

50. Low-powered hardware

51. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
mission and vision
• Develop (and deploy) a low-cost laptop
in order to revolutionize how we
educate the world's children
• What motivates learning is not carrots
or sticks, but rather:
– autonomy,
– mastery, and
– a sense of purpose.
• A laptop makes learning more flexible:
Children learn by teaching and actively
helping each other; the teacher is free
to focus expertise where it is needed

52. How is learning with the XO different?
OLPC
Computer for learning
Student-centric
Teacher as mentor
Voice, text
Learning to learn
Critical thinking

53. Efficient Knowledge sharing with
SemanticXO and ERS

54. Mesh VS Infrastructure network

55. Infrastructure: Low-powered hardware
and Mesh networking
ENTITY REGISTRY SYSTEM (ERS)
• Fully decentralised Linked Data publication platform
• Works under any kind of connectivity context
• Tracks back individual edits back to their authors
• Simple and versatile
• Open Source https://github.com/ers-devs
• Low resource demanding
... and open for contributions so don't
hesitate to fork it!
Christophe Gueret

56. Hybrid solution
http://www.firstmilesolutions.com/documents/DakNet_IEEE_Computer.pdf

57. Sneakernet
Throughput
Latency
“Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full
of tapes hurtling down the highway.”
—Andrew Tanenbaum

58. Linked Open Data for Development

59. International Aid Transparancy Initiative
“IATI is a voluntary, multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks
to improve the transparency of aid in order to increase
its effectiveness in tackling poverty.”
As of 2013, over 150 donors, NGOs and governments
have registered to the IATIregistry.org by publishing
their aid activities in this XML standard.
Now: 180+

60. Linking datasets

61. http://iati2lod.appspot.com/
4. How does violent conflict in recipient countries affect aid activities?
5. How does aid spending as registered in the IATI standard compare to World
Bank indicators?

63. LinkedIDS

64. Links to DBPedia
IDS: document 0001 Theme:”Food Security”
DBPedia:”Food Security”
Analysis of approaches to
understanding and addressing food
security issues; examination of the
structural causes of food insecurity
and different policy responses
Theme:” Food aid emergencies ”
Person:”David Pimentel”
Organisation:”FAO”
“Voedselzekerheid”@NL

65. Links to IATI
IDS: document 0003 Theme 'Higher education’
IATI Sector:”Higher Education”
Theme Education
Organisation : UN Habitat
Activity: Multi donor fund to support civil
society in democracy related issues
Degree and diploma
programmes at
universities, colleges and
polytechnics;
scholarships.

66. Pieter Nicolai (BSc)

67. Towards Development Informatics

69. www.worldwidesemanticweb.org

70. Rapid-prototyping
knowledge sharing platform
(aka “The Box”)

71. ICT4D Course @
•MSc Computer Science course
–this year 3rd time
–Core Computer Science: CS4D
•Make students aware of
importance of context
•Hands-on experience
•Train CS researchers in ICT4D

72. With the mainstream
Dev. countries can leapfrog directly into the
information age,
jumping many phases of immature technologies
Img: flickr/n3v3rv0id
Linked Data is mainstream computer science research.
Test hypotheses in domains/environments

73. “The goal is to bring together top Computer Scientists who are
willing to integrate development specific problems into their
own respective research. Those experts will face common
challenges: technologically, as well as legally, ethically,
sociologically and politically, challenges that could be
addressed more coherently in what we might call:
Development Informatics.”
• Applied science in multidisciplinary domain
• LD4D: Linked Data and Semantic web technologies
• HCI4D: voice interfaces, icon-based communication
• DS4D: distributed systems for low-connected environments
• Socio-technical system
• Cultural, physical context plays important role in types of solutions, but also
Software engineering issues
Stefan Schlobach

74. http://www.voices.eu
http://w4ra.org
http://worldwidesemanticweb.org
v.de.boer@vu.nl
victordeboer.com

75. Questions?