Despite the fact that data-driven intelligence has been used successfully to address business problems, has not yet revealed its potential in helping solve social problems. On one hand, social problems are more complex because of the number of stakeholders involved, often with limited cooperation and lack of data resources and knowledge. On the other hand, the shortage and immaturity that characterize current data infrastructures is a substantial barrier to social entrepreneurship and innovation.

In particular, a data infrastructure consists of data assets (e.g. open data and standards) and the organisations that operate them. Trustworthy data infrastructure is sustainably funded and has oversight that provides direction to maximise data use and value by meeting the needs of society. The data assets in our data infrastructure may be in the closed, shared or open parts of the data spectrum.

We will discuss examples and ideas on which data infrastructures are important and how can help social initiatives to grow in unpreceded ways.

Speaker: Michalis Vafopoulos, researcher at the Software & Knowledge Engineering Laboratory (SKEL) of the Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications of the National Center of Scientific Research «Demokritos» , Board Member of GFOSS – Open Technologies Alliance

In cooperation with Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Greece.