Slides for the second part of the Linked Data for Development (LD4D) Tutorial, held at WSSF2013 in Montreal Canada. In this presentation I talk about Downscaling the Semantic Web, taking into account issues around 1) infrastructure and hardware 2) interfaces 3) relevant data

1. Linked Data for Development:
Part 2: Downscaling Linked Data
Victor de Boer
With significant input from
Christophe Guéret, Martin Murillo, Stephane Boyera, Stefan
Schlobach, Bernie Innocenti, Walter Bender, Claudia Urrea, Anna
Bon, Hans Akkermans, Nana Gyan, Amadou Tangara. Mary Allen,…

2. LD4D at ISWC2012

3. Outline
• Part 2:
– Why Linked Data for Development
– Bringing the Semantic Web and Linked Data to the Base of the
Pyramid
• Relevancy
• Infrastructure and connectivity
• Interfaces
– IATI as Linked Data
– Voice-based access to Market data in the Sahel
– Distributed data sharing: OLPC and ERS
• Part 3: Handson session!

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

6. Digital divide in classrooms

7. ICT4D
• 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

8. 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

9. Web Alliance for Regreening in Africa
Washington, 13-15 May 2013 9
W4RA : Information
exchange and
knowledge sharing in
rural Africa

10. 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:

11. 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

12. Why linked data (1/2)
Slide stolen from Christophe Gueret

13. Slide stolen from Christophe Gueret
Why linked data (2/2)

14. Web of Documents (WWW)
Linked Documents

15. Web of Data
Linked Data

16. 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)

17. 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

18. Infrastructure
• No internet,
• No bandwith,
• No computer,
• No electricity
• Cost
– Total cost of ownership

19. Interface
• Low literacy
• Low education
• Small languages
• low capacity to
interpret data, and
illiteracy;

20. 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

21. New ways of connecting to the
(Semantic) Web

22. Mobile phones

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

24. Low-powered hardware
• OLPC XO laptop
• Raspberry Pi
• Sheevaplug etc.

25. 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

26. Voice-based Web access in Africa

27. • 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)
• Develop a free and open source toolbox for local
developers.
– Investigate self-sustainability
– Develop appropriate business models
– In collaboration with local communities.

28. Bottom-up
• 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

29. 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

30. Local market data
Communiqué
GSM/Voice interface
Web Interface Text-To-Speech
Community radio
Sahel Eco operative
Buyers

31. “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

32. VoiceXML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<vxml version="2.0" lang="en">
<form>
<prompt bargein="false">
Welcome to RadioMarche!
<audio src=“audio/communique_1_bambara.wav"/>
</prompt>
<option dtmf="1" value=“1">Press one for X</option>
<option dtmf=“2" value=“2">Press two for Y</option>
...
</vxml>
DTMF = Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling

33. Foroba Blon

38. Web for ALL.
Using voice technologies and available tools…
… we make the benefits of the Web available to people who
use simple mobile phones.
~
~
~
~
~
~

39. Results
• RadioMarché -- Increased market for farmers.
– Political, social, economical, ecological factors play a great role
– Too successful: not the entire value chain is served
• Foroba Blon -- Facilitating rural citizen journalism.
– Privacy and security,
– New business models
Voice platform with reusable components for
different use cases.

40. Linked Data for RadioMarche

41. http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/radiomarche

42. Linked Market Data
• 1,952 RDF triples
– 90 offerings
– 19 contacts
• Links to
– Data
• DBPedia
• GeoNames
• Agrovoc
– Vocabularies
• Foaf
• GoodRelations
Local market data
Data / communique layer
Farmers
(producers)
Buyers
(consumers)
Email GSM/Voice
Web SMS
Interface handler layer
Local
radio

43. Sharing across regions/NGOs
Local market data
RadioMarché market information system
Farmers
(producers)
Buyers
(consumers)
Email GSM/Voice
Web SMS
Data / communique platform
Local radio
RadioMarché in second region
Local market data
Data / communique layer
Farmers
(producers)
Buyers
(consumers)
Email GSM/Voice
Web SMS
Interface handler layer
Local radio

44. Re-use: EcoMash
Henk Kroon

45. rm:offering0001
rm:shea_butter
rm:1000
rdfs:label
rdfs:label “Amande de Karité”@fr
“Shea Nuts”@en
speakle:voicelabel_ba
rm:audio_shea_nl.wav
rm:audio_shea_ba.wav
speakle:voicelabel_nl
rdfs:label
“1000”
speakle:voicelabel_ba
rm:audio_1000_nl.wav
rm:audio_1000_ba.wav
speakle:voicelabel_nl
rm:Mazankuy_Diarra
rm:kilo
rdfs:label “kilo”@en
speakle:voicelabel_ba
rm:audio_kilo_nl.wav
rm:audio_kilo_ba.wav
speakle:voicelabel_nl
rm:has_contact
Speakle voice labels

48. https://github.com/biktorrr/speakle

49. Voice browser Tel: +31208080855
Skype: +990009369996162208
Welcome
Choose application and
language
dtmf
About which product
(EN)
About which product
(NL)
List all products (EN)
dtmf
List product offerings
dtmf
List product offerings
1
2
3
1..n
1..n

50. Current status
• Linked Market Data
– Locally created
– Linked Data make re-use possible (NGO, others)
– LD voice labels
• Can be (re)used to develop voice applications with this data
• To go beyond proof-of-concept
– More localization needed
– Local hardware/services (Emerginov / OfficeRoute)
– User testing
– More sophisticated translations (VoiceSPARQL)

51. Infrastructure
Interface Relevancy

52. Icon-based interaction

53. Icon-based interaction
NCR ATM interface for illiterate 'grammar' - ISOTYPE by Otto Neurath available at
http://imaginarymuseum.org/MHV/PZImhv/NeurathPictureLanguage.html

54. Crowdsourcing voice fragment gathering

55. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), Sugar
and the Entity Registry System
Bernie Innocenti, Walter Bender, Christophe
Guéret,Claudia Urrea

56. 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

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

58. Sugar
• Operating system for
XO laptops
• Learner centric
• Activities (Apps)

59. Different activities

60. The numbers (2012)
• 2,000,000+ children with XOs
• 1,000,000,000 children w/o laptops
• 150+ language projects
• 40+ countries
• 500+ Sugar activities

61. Efficient Knowledge sharing with
SemanticXO and ERS

62. Mesh VS Infrastructure network

63. Christophe Gueret

64. Christophe Gueret

65. Christophe Gueret

66. Christophe Gueret

67. Christophe Gueret

68. Christophe Gueret

69. Christophe Gueret

70. Christophe Gueret

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

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

73. Infrastructure
Interface Relevancy

74. Linked Data for
Kasper Brandt
Victor de Boer

75. Introduction - IATI
“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+

76. Introduction - IATI users
• Funders
o Where is the money of my organisation spent?
o Where do other organisations spend their money?
• Governments
o How much money is spent in my country?
o What are the budgets or planned disbursements for my country?
• Locals
o What organisations are working in my area?
o What projects are currently going on in my area?
• Public
o Where is my tax money going?
o What are the organisations doing with my donations?

77. Introduction - IATI model
Organisations
Activities

78. Introduction - Why IATI Linked Data?
1. Reusable vocabularies
o Extract information automatically from the IATI data by making
use of applications which are able to interpret standard
vocabularies
2. Enrich IATI data
o Link IATI data to external datasets in order to enrich the IATI
data with additional information or metadata.
3. Donors can use their own Linked Data specification.
o @Linked-data-uri attribute already exists in the IATI
model.

79. Model and links based on requirements
elicitated from experts
Iterative Requirements Engineering Process Model by Loucopoulos and Karakostas

80. Linked Data model - Example
iati:activity/GB-CHC-285776-CHA024
iati:activity-transaction
iati:activity/GB-CHC-285776-CHA024/transaction/42737 .
iati:activity/GB-CHC-285776-CHA024/transaction/42737
iati:transaction-tied-status
iati:codelist/TiedStatus/5 .

81. Linked Data model - Provenance
• On file level
o Not on activity level
• A named graph per file,
e.g.:iati:graph/dataset/Worldb
ank

82. Linked Data model - Vocabularies

83. Linked Data model - Triple store
• Triples loaded into a ClioPatria triple store:
o http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/iati/
o Sparql endpoint
– Dereferenceable URIs
(http://purl.org/collections/iati/codelist/Sector/11420)
• Total number of triples: 36,629,017
• Total number of named graphs: 4,790
o Largest activities graph is UNOPS containing 1,231,896
triples
• Takes approximately 30 minutes to load all data into the triple store.
RDFLib
Python RDF/Turtle

84. Linking datasets - Approach
1. In total, how much does a given country receive in aid?
2. A comparative index of aid versus the Human Development Index.
3. What is the geographic location of a project? How much aid went to a given
province, constituency or village?
o Is the aid spent in places where the need is highest? Is it well distributed
across the country?
o Can we attribute sub-national breakdowns for aid so we can see how much
goes to different parts of recipient countries?
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?

85. Linking datasets

86. Linking Data applications - Approach
1. In total, how much does a given country receive in aid?
2. A comparative index of aid versus the Human Development Index.
3. What is the geographic location of a project? How much aid went to a given
province, constituency or village?
o Is the aid spent in places where the need is highest? Is it well distributed
across the country?
o Can we attribute sub-national breakdowns for aid so we can see how much
goes to different parts of recipient countries?
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?

87. http://iati2lod.appspot.com/
1. In total, how much does a given country receive in aid?

88. 2. A comparative index of aid versus the Human Development Index.
http://iati2lod.appspot.com/

89. 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?

92. 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

93. 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.

94. Linked Data for Landportal.info
[M.Sc. thesis by Alan Chavoshe]
• The Land Portal is an easy access, easy-to-use
platform to share land related information, to
monitor trends, and identify information gaps to
promote effective and sustainable land
governance.

95. Nichesourcing for pluvial data digitization for the Sahel
[M.Sc. thesis by Binyam Tesfa]

96. DBpedia
GeoNames
Agrovoc
Inst. of Development
Studies LOD
Citizen Journalism
data
Sahel Pluvial data
SemanticXO
RadioMarché
Linked market data
Linked Data for Development (LD4D)
IATI data

97. Infrastructure
Interface Relevancy

98. Take home
• Knowledge sharing is a tool for development
• Linked Data is well-suited because of
– Language- and interface agnostic characteristics
– Decentralizability
– Reusability outside of original context
• Downscaling
– Interface
– Infrastructure
– Relevancy
Img: flickr/TomJByrne

99. What we need from you?
• Data
• Cases
– Transparency, Governance, Democracy
– Economic development, Healthcare
• Reflection
– Ethics of ICT4D
• Open Data
• Linked Data
Img: flickr/wetwebwork

100. More information?
http://worldwidesemanticweb.org
http://w4ra.org
http://iati2lod.appspot.com/
http://victordeboer.com
v.de.boer@vu.nl

103. The Tabale Platform
NGO staff
Malian French
Bomu
Bambara
Record
multiple
messages
in different
languages
yes
no
don’t know

104. VUI design (three languages)