Web search has become an essential technology and commodity, driving not only future innovations but also serving as a backbone for our digital economy. Regrettably, currently few non-European gatekeepers control Web search, which creates biased and one-sided information access, centred around economic success, rather than the needs of citizens or European values and jurisdiction. This one-sided ecosystem puts pressure on many small Web contributors: from science, economy, art, culture, media and society, requiring them to optimize their content according to rules defined by a few gatekeepers. This system is greatly benefiting the gatekeepers and thereby creates a vicious cycle, leading to locked-in effects and a closed search engine market.
To counter this problem, 14 renowned European research and computing centres have joined forces in 2022 and started the openwebsearch.eu project in the context of the Next Generation Internet initiative from DG Connect. The aim is to develop an open infrastructure for web analysis and web search. The initiative will be contributing to Europe’s digital sovereignty as well as to promoting an open, human-centred search engine market, based on European values and legislation.
Experts from the Open Search Foundation, openwebsearch.eu and from the digital economy will use concrete examples to show, how an open Web index, through its openness and transparency, can break down the encrusted structures of the currently highly monopolized search engine market.
Participants will gain insight into the rules and dangers of the currently walled-off and opaque search market and they will discover concept and key features of an open web index. They will also learn, why an open European web index, as public infrastructure, is key to booster digital innovation and economy in Europe and how it will enable Europe's researchers, innovators, start-ups and industry to systematically leverage the web as a business and innovation resource.
Speakers
Dr. Stefan Voigt, is chairman of the Open Search Foundation e.V. since 2018. The OSF is a none-for-profit association promoting the generation of knowledge and concepts for a distributed and public Internet search infrastructure in and for Europe. Since 2000 he is affiliated with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), where he initiated and coordinated many national, European and international research projects and programmes in the domain of Earth Observation and Humanitarian Technology. He studied geography, physics, remote sensing and urban planning at LMU and TUM in Munich. He received his PhD from Bern University in 2000. Since 2017 he serves as ideator and chief evangelist for the Open Search Initiative and in this capacity he is part of the coordination team of the OpenWebSearch.eu project.
Prof. Dr. Michael Granitzer is holding the Chair of Data Science at the University of Passau, following a Professorship for Media Computer Science since 2012 (also at University of Passau). Before, he was Scientific Director of the Know-Center Graz (since 2010) and assistant professor at the Knowledge Technology Institute of Graz University of Technology (since 2008). He studied Telematik at Graz University of Technology with special focus on Computational Intelligence and Biomedical Computer Science. His research interests are in intelligent methods for extracting knowledge from unstructured or semi-structured media through exploiting synergies between man and machine. He is the scientific coordinator of the OpenWebSearch.eu project.
Dr. Isabell Claus is CEO of thinkers.ai, Serial Tech Entrepreneur, Winner of the „Europe State Award 2022“ awarded by the Austrian Federal Chancellery, „Entrepreneur of the Year 2020” and achieved five awards as “Top 100 fastest growing companies in EMEA” (Deloitte und Financial Times Awards) for five consecutive years together with her venture teams. Her current venture thinkers.ai specializes in artificial intelligence for the analysis of web data. She gained professional experience in the US, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and Austria. Besides her entrepreneurial career, Dr. Isabell Claus holds lectures on AI strategies and is author of several publications on AI and cybersecurity.