These are the slides of a presentation given at http://www.w3.org/2012/06/pmod . Our current mindset when thinking about "Open Data" excludes the majority of World population from using it. This presentation highlight some of the work being done to change this.

1. Decentralised Open Data
for World Citizens
Christophe Guéret, Victor de Boer, Anna Bon & many more
Using Open Data policy modelling,
citizen empowerment, data journalism
19 - 20 June 2012
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 1/19

2. The common facets of Open Data
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 2/19
http://www.flickr.com/photos/swamibu/2928083712

3. Open Data portals
Single entry point to all
data and applications
English + country
official language(s)
Text oriented
Serve static data
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 3/19

4. Open Data users
They have a smartphone
or at least a Web browser
They are young and geeky
They can read and type
Some of them will code
applications for the others
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 4/19

5. Open Data producer hardware
Data centers that can
host terabytes of data
99.9% uptime
High speed reliable
http://www.flickr.com/photos/argonne/3323018571 Internet connection
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 5/19

6. Who are we talking about exactly?
Data consumers that:
(Computer) literate
Early adopters of new technologies
Data producers that:
Have access to publication platforms
Have a significant amount of data to publish
Are trusted as data providers
A tiny fraction of the 7 billion World Citizen
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 6/19

7. Data sharing need and issues
Example needs
Market prices
Innovative agricultural techniques
Information about stock of crops
Issues
Distances between rural communities in Sahel
Limited infrastructure: no electricity, no computer, no
Internet (but radio and mobile phones)
Lack of relevant content, literacy and education,
different languages
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 7/19

8. A simple question...
How can everyone
benefit from Open
Data ?
Part of the solution:
Voice interfaces
DownScaled
infrastructures
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 8/19

9. Voice interfaces
What ?
Replace textual interfaces by speech
Why ?
Everyone can speak and listen
Good mobile penetration in sub-Saharan Africa
How ?
Use and develop TTS and ASR technologies
Deal with several local languages
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 9/19

10. DownScaling infrastructures
What ?
Use a swarm of micro-servers instead of a central one
Why ?
Micro-servers are less costly
Redundancy in the swarm improves robustness
Decentralise => get closer to data consumers/producers
How ?
Use low-end hardware
Adapt data technologies (in particular, Linked Data)
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 10/19

11. Our target hardware, portal and users
‘Allo, Linked Data?
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 11/19

12. Some of the ongoing projects
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens Photo (c) Bruno van Moerkerken
12/19

13. RadioMarché: sharing market prices
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 13/19

14. RadioMarché : voice interface
Farmers call to indicate
their prices
Messages are generated
in different languages
Buyers call and listen to
the messages
Rely on community radio
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 14/19

15. Foroba Blon: timely data sharing
It rained a
lot today!
I wonder when it
will rain...
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 15/19

16. Foroba Blon: citizen journalists
Users call the service and leave their message
Community radios collect and curate the citizen-
reported content
Messages are diffused on the radio and are
accessible via mobile phones and on the Web
Less latency between producers and consumers
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 16/19

17. SemanticXO: sharing data at 6 to 12
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 17/19

18. SemanticXO: data sharing stack for the XO
Every XO is a data
External Sugar
applications activities
publisher and
consumer
Structured
HTTP Server
data store API Does not rely on any
central host
Triple
Web of Data
store + Uses lightweight data
files
relays when needed
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 18/19

19. Take home message
Widening the access to Open Data implies
Developing voice-based interfaces
DownScaling infrastructures
For more information:
http://worldwidesemanticweb.wordpress.com/
http://semweb4u.wordpress.com/
http://w4ra.few.vu.nl/
http://mvoices.eu/
PMOD - June 2012 Open Data for World Citizens 19/19