ngi-search
21 de junio de 2024
👋 Dear NGI Search Community
Last week, BTECH Post-Doc Renée Ridgway presented the NGI Search project at the Open Source Community Annual Conference (Ow2) in Paris, France.
✨The two-day conference showcases Open Source software in modern information systems developed and implemented by people worldwide. This year, a particular focus was added– financing open source and the commons✨
DAY 1📆
On Day 1, Renée presented her talk Ethics and Values in FOSS: sustainability of open-source development, and the EU NGI vision that first introduced the EU's Next Generation Internet (NGI) search project, which funds SMEs, entrepreneurs, academics and activists for innovations on search.
The NGI Search project's vision is to change how we use and experience search & discover data and resources on the internet and the web.
NGI Search Coordinator Associate Professor Mirko Presser and a team of experts from the University of Murcia, Ow2, Linknovate, and Funding Box decide which projects will be awarded.
These innovations address search and discovery within a human-centric context (meaning privacy-aware and trust-oriented) and propose vertical use cases developed jointly with industry, with the condition that all code from deliverables must be open source.
Renée then zoomed in on 'Ethics in Search and Discovery', a theme that focuses on the responsible development of AI systems, de-biasing mechanisms such as data augmentation and resampling, as well as encouraging responsible and explainable AI in ethical terms. She then briefly presented her ethnographic research, consisting of interviews with some of the developers to comprehend the ethics and values of the forms FOSS/open source is taking within their awarded NGI search projects.
The research questions why it is necessary to understand what FOSS/open source is, its history and how public funding promotes its sustainability.
Additionally, she introduced research by other members of BTECH's FOSS research group that examines the sustainability of open-source development and what types of business models are at play in each funded NGI search project.
💫The last NGI Search Open Call (5), with a deadline of July 28, 2024, augments its sister project. This forthcoming distributed European open web index seeks innovative search applications (engines, LLMs, knowledge graphs) and data products to use its open infrastructure.💫
DAY 2📆
On the second day of Ow2, Renée moderated the Breakout Session NGI Success Stories, which presented a few of the recipients of NGI Search funding.
🏅 From the 1st round, Mohamed-Amine Kerkouri from Orlean University, France, presented HeRaFaNMi(Health Related Fake News Mitigation), an AI-based automatic system to detect fake news related to healthcare. Current NLP techniques for fake health news detection have limitations, with most relying on supervised learning. The proposed project aims to overcome these limitations by continuously updating the knowledge base with emerging events.
🏅 Next, Caspar Krampe from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, presented third-round winner Metavision, which provides a 3D art gallery for artists to become searchable, exhibit and sell their artwork to a global audience with minimal barriers, and for consumers to have an unbounded experience not limited by physical space/entry fees. Besides creating Metaverse-ready art galleries procedurally through free and open-source software, the project will investigate the integration of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to ensure privacy and trust are upheld within the emerging 3D web for art.
🏅 Finally, second-round awardees Ioana Cheres and Mihai Topor from the Technical University Cluj-Napoca, Romania, presented a live demo of MindBugs Discovery. This AI-powered knowledge graph visualises connections in the world of disinformation. Powered by AI algorithms, a knowledge graph, and a dataset, the interactive tool displays visual charts and graphics that expose the origin, evolution, targeted locations and temporal trends, offering an innovative solution for navigating and understanding the complex landscape of disinformation.
The presentations incited a lively discussion with the attendees at the Breakout Session and those participating online, encompassing philosophical questions regarding the provenance of retrieved information, what defines 'truth' in an era of fake news, along with emphasising human interpretation of data, placing people at the forefront of open source technologies (search, AI, non-fungible tokens).
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Looking for a chance to obtain as much as €150K in funding and expert advice for your project? Your search ends here! 🚨
✨The NGI Search's 5th Open Call accepts submissions; there's still time to send yours in.✨
👉 Submit your application now by clicking here.
