[00:00.000 --> 00:09.480]  So, thank you. I'm Aurora from the University of Murcia.
[00:09.480 --> 00:12.120]  And I'm Michael from the University of Passau.
[00:12.120 --> 00:16.320]  And we will be presenting the NGA Search and OpenWeb Search.U projects.
[00:16.320 --> 00:22.960]  Two sister initiatives for a paradigm change in open search and discovery on the internet.
[00:22.960 --> 00:27.640]  We will have a common introduction and then each of us will delve in the projects that
[00:27.640 --> 00:29.960]  we are involved in.
[00:29.960 --> 00:33.960]  The short disclaimer before we start, in the last two days at FOSTA, we have heard a lot
[00:33.960 --> 00:37.440]  about personal lifetime projects.
[00:37.440 --> 00:40.400]  This is quite different because it's not personal.
[00:40.400 --> 00:43.880]  These are European institutions involved.
[00:43.880 --> 00:49.520]  And it's not lifetime, but these projects, they are just starting up and have nice ideas
[00:49.520 --> 00:52.800]  and require your attention and contribution.
[00:52.800 --> 01:01.200]  So, NGA Search is a European project that will welcome entrepreneurs, tech-dates, developers
[01:01.200 --> 01:08.040]  and socially engaged people that have challenging ideas about the way that we will search and
[01:08.040 --> 01:11.080]  discover information and data on the internet.
[01:11.080 --> 01:19.880]  So basically, we will find projects that are focusing on several topics that I will explain
[01:19.880 --> 01:26.320]  in a minute and they are compliant with the European values of openness, transparency,
[01:26.320 --> 01:28.400]  privacy and trust.
[01:28.400 --> 01:32.280]  The applicants can be natural persons and organizations and they can apply individually
[01:32.280 --> 01:37.720]  or as a consortium of three members of a team.
[01:37.720 --> 01:43.960]  OpenWeb Search is a project funded by the EU and has the goal of developing an open European
[01:43.960 --> 01:46.160]  infrastructure for a web search.
[01:46.160 --> 01:53.120]  There are several research and computing centers involved and the project started in September
[01:53.120 --> 01:56.920]  last year and has a time frame of three years.
[01:56.920 --> 02:02.240]  It's quite interesting that it's the first project which is funded by the EU and has
[02:02.240 --> 02:06.760]  the goal of developing Europe's own web index.
[02:06.760 --> 02:10.680]  And for those who don't know, a web index is a data structure which allows the vast
[02:10.680 --> 02:13.040]  access of web data.
[02:13.040 --> 02:22.840]  It is the fundamental core of all current search engines and it enables the development
[02:22.840 --> 02:31.240]  of all kind of web search and web data retrieval services.
[02:31.240 --> 02:34.400]  So for us, let me present you the project partners.
[02:34.400 --> 02:39.680]  We are Link Novene, Aros University, the University of Murcia, OW2, a funding box.
[02:39.680 --> 02:43.480]  These are some of our phases.
[02:43.480 --> 02:47.680]  We will organize five different open calls and we will welcome these innovative projects.
[02:47.680 --> 02:54.680]  We will provide them financial support up to 150,000 euros and as well we will not only
[02:54.680 --> 02:59.440]  provide financial but also technical, business and innovation support and the projects are
[02:59.440 --> 03:03.160]  expected to take 12 months.
[03:03.160 --> 03:11.400]  The first open call is already closed, the evaluation is ongoing and it was a technological
[03:11.400 --> 03:19.160]  based call, meaning that we were looking for products, finalized products.
[03:19.160 --> 03:24.440]  And then we will select nine to 10 projects in the topics that you see on the screen,
[03:24.440 --> 03:30.600]  base voice assistants, NLP, semantic analysis, social computing and data visualization.
[03:30.600 --> 03:36.680]  But let me delve a little bit more on the second open call topics which may caught your
[03:36.680 --> 03:37.680]  attention.
[03:37.680 --> 03:39.800]  I hope you can resonate with some of them.
[03:39.800 --> 03:44.880]  The second open call will open in April, the first of April and it's a little bit more
[03:44.880 --> 03:52.760]  research oriented but please have a look because we have plenty of space for everything.
[03:52.760 --> 03:54.320]  And let me explain each topic.
[03:54.320 --> 03:58.520]  The first one is power cognitive search by reinforcement learning.
[03:58.520 --> 04:04.960]  Today we look for mechanisms of self-learning and all kinds of algorithms that can contribute
[04:04.960 --> 04:11.480]  to our reinforcement learning system that is able to then with the interactions how
[04:11.480 --> 04:16.280]  to choose the right data and algorithms in order to make any search more relevant towards
[04:16.280 --> 04:19.640]  the objective of it.
[04:19.640 --> 04:23.400]  Then the second topic is machine based data, Internet of Things data.
[04:23.400 --> 04:29.440]  Today we look for algorithms for search and pattern discovery that are adapted or that
[04:29.440 --> 04:38.720]  can adapt to IOT characteristics which means we will look for edge computing, times, algorithms
[04:38.720 --> 04:45.200]  that can deal with time series, with events, with different localizations and so on.
[04:45.200 --> 04:47.520]  We have also AI based taxonomies.
[04:47.520 --> 04:53.320]  We look for the automatic creation and expansion of existing taxonomies that are machine based
[04:53.320 --> 04:59.160]  and machine interpretable semantics by using AI techniques.
[04:59.160 --> 05:03.760]  Basically we want to model the interdependency among new concepts so we want to adapt to
[05:03.760 --> 05:08.200]  the dynamic and the dynamicity of the data.
[05:08.200 --> 05:11.280]  The next topic is network analysis.
[05:11.280 --> 05:18.680]  Basically we want to find other ways to create knowledge graphs which are an interlinked network
[05:18.680 --> 05:21.520]  of distributed resources that can be searched.
[05:21.520 --> 05:27.360]  We can do this looking for, the objective can be to make them more scalable, to test
[05:27.360 --> 05:35.080]  the quality of the creative models, to create different semantics, to make them compliant
[05:35.080 --> 05:39.160]  with diversity and dynamicity of data and so on.
[05:39.160 --> 05:44.840]  Then we have AI based search tools and content generators.
[05:44.840 --> 05:49.880]  As you know nowadays AI based content generators are quite popular.
[05:49.880 --> 05:58.680]  Here I have some names that have been coming up in FOSM many times, check GPT, GitHub co-pilot,
[05:58.680 --> 05:59.680]  co-PAI.
[05:59.680 --> 06:04.880]  So we welcome projects that can help evaluate the privacy of these kind of tools.
[06:04.880 --> 06:09.960]  Also look for research at the logical gaps on them as well as the completeness of their
[06:09.960 --> 06:11.560]  answers.
[06:11.560 --> 06:14.320]  Then we have the topic of ethics in search and discovery.
[06:14.320 --> 06:22.480]  We want to have projects that specifically focus on testing that the developments of
[06:22.480 --> 06:26.880]  search and discovery are compliant with human rights, that they are not biased towards
[06:26.880 --> 06:38.240]  minorities, towards gender, so that they promote equality but also private, they are private
[06:38.240 --> 06:43.920]  and they take care of the data confidentiality.
[06:43.920 --> 06:48.480]  And finally we have new ways of discovering and accessing information, which is a broad
[06:48.480 --> 06:51.960]  topic so that we don't leave anything behind.
[06:51.960 --> 06:52.960]  How are we going to do that?
[06:52.960 --> 06:57.640]  We are going to provide technology mentoring and advice on technologies to access store
[06:57.640 --> 07:04.680]  managed data and also on algorithms and the platforms are tailored to the projects.
[07:04.680 --> 07:09.880]  We are going to leverage the reach out beta testing platforms, a platform for beta testing
[07:09.880 --> 07:13.440]  campaigns, then we are going to link the projects to different standards and promote
[07:13.440 --> 07:18.800]  the conversations with different foundations that will be related to them.
[07:18.800 --> 07:21.240]  We will have a program for market readiness.
[07:21.240 --> 07:31.360]  We will create workshops for pitch training so that they can try to pitch their solution
[07:31.360 --> 07:36.040]  or their project to potential investors and users.
[07:36.040 --> 07:41.000]  Business modeling advice and coaching and as for innovation, we will give information
[07:41.000 --> 07:47.920]  about which kind of open source license they can have, they can use, how to manage it and
[07:47.920 --> 07:56.040]  how to make their research and their solutions reproducible so following open science principles.
[07:56.040 --> 08:02.080]  So as to conclude for my part, the next three years there will be five open calls that will
[08:02.080 --> 08:08.240]  challenge the way that we search and discover information on the Internet.
[08:08.240 --> 08:14.200]  We have synergies with the NDI mission of looking for a more human centric Internet
[08:14.200 --> 08:19.920]  and these are our core values, open source, contributions to the wider community, collaboration
[08:19.920 --> 08:25.440]  and open science principles as well as transversal challenges that include sustainability and
[08:25.440 --> 08:26.440]  equality.
[08:26.440 --> 08:30.200]  I give the floor to my colleague.
[08:30.200 --> 08:31.320]  Thanks.
[08:31.320 --> 08:36.840]  So now switching to the second system project, open web surge.
[08:36.840 --> 08:44.440]  As I said before, there are several computing and research centers involved in the project
[08:44.440 --> 08:49.880]  and it's good this way because all of these have different competences like universities
[08:49.880 --> 08:55.440]  or businesses and this underlines one specific point about the project.
[08:55.440 --> 09:02.200]  In contrary to the web index which is operated by Google for example, this project does not
[09:02.200 --> 09:10.960]  follow a centralized approach but it tries to build up a web index collaboratively and
[09:10.960 --> 09:16.800]  distributed among several European institutions otherwise it would just not be possible to
[09:16.800 --> 09:24.360]  build up a web index from scratch.
[09:24.360 --> 09:29.160]  I will keep the motivation short because it should be clear why it is a good idea to have
[09:29.160 --> 09:36.160]  your own web index in Europe, the first thing is the imbalance in the surge engine market.
[09:36.160 --> 09:46.680]  There are four big global web indexes out there from big tech companies and this dominance
[09:46.680 --> 09:52.800]  of these companies has a lot of negative effects on the critical infrastructure web
[09:52.800 --> 09:59.120]  surge so to say and the solution is to strive for more plurality.
[09:59.120 --> 10:07.800]  Another thing is that web data is a driver for innovations and an example, just one
[10:07.800 --> 10:13.840]  out of many examples that has drawn a lot of attention lately is the training of large
[10:13.840 --> 10:25.440]  language models such as JetGPT which works on its basis with web data.
[10:25.440 --> 10:33.680]  The project goals are developing the core of an open web index so two remarks on this
[10:33.680 --> 10:43.320]  point, this will be done with open source and open configuration and it is not expected
[10:43.320 --> 10:50.360]  that at the end of the three years of the project there will be a production ready index
[10:50.360 --> 11:00.480]  but the goal is to have an index which contains at least 50% of all text web pages and then
[11:00.480 --> 11:06.440]  that can be worked on and that shows as a prototype that it is possible to create it
[11:06.440 --> 11:12.760]  collaboratively and distributed among several institutions.
[11:12.760 --> 11:18.640]  Another goal is to build an ecosystem around the index and make it publicly available in
[11:18.640 --> 11:20.240]  this way.
[11:20.240 --> 11:25.840]  As I said before it serves as a feasibility study in some way to show that it is possible
[11:25.840 --> 11:32.640]  to do it collaboratively and that is why along the way it should be established a network
[11:32.640 --> 11:38.400]  among European infrastructure partners.
[11:38.400 --> 11:45.800]  The overall vision of the project is to give open access for innovators and businesses and
[11:45.800 --> 11:55.960]  researchers on web data to enable them to build new business ideas for example or to
[11:55.960 --> 12:02.980]  work on their ideas on web search and web analysis.
[12:02.980 --> 12:11.280]  As for the NGI search project there are also ways to contribute to openwebsurge.u through
[12:11.280 --> 12:17.720]  third party calls there will be three public calls with a fixed amount of funding and the
[12:17.720 --> 12:22.840]  first of them focuses on the legal aspects of the project.
[12:22.840 --> 12:29.680]  There are two tracks the first one focuses contributions on legal and business and social
[12:29.680 --> 12:36.560]  aspects of web search in general and the second track focuses on the legal compliance of the
[12:36.560 --> 12:44.540]  crawling so the acquisition of the data from the internet which is then stored in the index.
[12:44.540 --> 12:50.200]  This call will open on the first of March this year.
[12:50.200 --> 12:58.000]  There are also other opportunities to contribute which is covered by the upcoming calls and
[12:58.000 --> 13:06.360]  this course overview of the architecture should just give you a hint on where these contributions
[13:06.360 --> 13:16.120]  can be located so if you have an idea on how to develop a search and discovery application
[13:16.120 --> 13:27.480]  this can be done for example as a vertical search engine on top of the web index infrastructure
[13:27.480 --> 13:34.120]  or it can be a content analysis method which enriches the data which is then stored in
[13:34.120 --> 13:39.200]  the index.
[13:39.200 --> 13:46.680]  So as a conclusion the openwebsurge.u project wants to open up web search and strives for
[13:46.680 --> 13:56.920]  more plurality to give new business ideas a chance and new alternative search engines
[13:56.920 --> 14:05.960]  a chance therefore the project partners collaborate and build up an European open web index which
[14:05.960 --> 14:09.640]  is then publicly available.
[14:09.640 --> 14:15.520]  For researchers innovators and businesses there is the possibility to contribute either
[14:15.520 --> 14:24.160]  by developing your own business model which sets upon the open web index or by involving
[14:24.160 --> 14:27.520]  in one of the three public calls.
[14:27.520 --> 14:32.560]  The first one of them as I said opens on the first of March.
[14:32.560 --> 14:54.960]  So thanks for your attention and we open for questions.