University of the Aegean visits Ege University

During August 2014 I had the pleasure to visit Ege University in Ismir, on behalf of the Information Systems Laboratory of the Information and Communication Systems Engineering Department of the University of the Aegean.  My colleague Prof. Serdal Temel welcomed me in EBILTEM Technology Transfer Office, within the University campus.

Ege University Science and Technology Centre - Technology Transfer Office (EBILTEM-TTO) is a regional and national expertise organization on innovation management, R&D, technology transfer and triple helix cooperation. The Centre is located in Izmir, Turkey and is within the organizational structure of Ege University which is a 55-year old State University.

Ege University and University of the Aegean have signed a collaboration protocol since 2012, to further strengthen their collaboration on academic issues.

The potential for collaboration between EBILTEM/Ege University and IS-LAB/University of the Aegean spans in three axes:

Alignment of activities in the areas of university startup incubation programmes and youth entrepreneurship.

Joined participation in R&D proposals, under the HORIZON 2020 research programme or Greece - Turkey bilateral research programmes.

Students collaboration and other focused initiatives to promote collaboration among the two university units.

With Serdal Temel in EBILTEM

Further collaboration activities among the to Universities, as well as exchange of visits to Samos and Izmir are being planned in the coming months.

The 5th Samos Summit and the eGov Summer School 2014

More than 80 high-level experts in electronic  governance from 20 countries participated in the 5th International Samos Summit on "ICT-enabled Governance ", held on 30 June to 2 July 2014, at the Doryssa Hotel, in Samos, Greece.

The Summit was held under the auspices of the European Commission, the Greek Parliament, the Greek Ministry of Administrative Reform and e-Government, and was organized by the University of the Aegean / Department of Information and Communication Systems, with the support of the international research projects SHARE-PSI 2.0 (open data standardisation) , EU-COMMUNITY (global systems science), NOMAD (dynamic creation of policy from society) and ENGAGE (public data for scientific communities).

The key issues for this year’s summit was Open Data, powered by the SHARE PSI 2.0 project and Global Systems Science, an attempt to enable policy makers with scientific method and tools for evidence-based decision making.

The Summit also discussed the new approaches and guidelines for internet technologies in the context of the Digital Agenda 2020 and the new HORIZON 2020 framework for research and development in the European Union. More than 15 international research projects presented their proposals for new electronic services and tools for policymakers, citizen participation in decision making, open governance and effective management through open data initiatives at national and local level, including the CONSENSUS, e-POLICY, e-GOVPOLINET, GEN6 , PERIKLIS and POLICY COMPASS projects.

Participants of the summit included representatives of the European Commission, the Greek Parliament, European Institutions, Universities and Research Projects, and executives of international companies and IT organizations, among which W3C, PWC, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, Intrasoft International and Athens Technology Center. 

The involvement of the younger generation of scientists took place through the organization of the 2nd Summer School on “Open and Collaborative Governance”, involving researchers and students from around the world with interest in the field of eGovernment, providing them the opportunity to interact with internationally renowned academics, researchers and entrepreneurs. The summer school was organized by the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering University of the Aegean, in collaboration with the University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, and the Research Institute Mario Boela - ISMB, Turin.

Phil Archer, W3C Data Activity Lead and coordinator of the SHARE-PSI 2.0 project on open data standardization, said: “This year in Samos we achieved a fruitful exchange of international practices on Open Data. That was the 1st international workshop of SHARE PSI 2.0 project that brings together more than 40 organisations from almost every European member-state and beyond. We hope to show how the sharing of Public Sector information sharing increases the efficiency of public administrations and aids evidence-based decision making.”

More information on the summit is found at http://www.samos-summit.org 

More information about the Summer School in Open and Collaborative Governance: https://egov2014.pns.aegean.gr/  

Aegean Startups: Training Entrepreneurs in Samos and Lemnos

Within May 2014, the Information Systems Lab performed two 5-day seminars in Samos and Lemnos islands, training entrepreneurs and company executives on "Management and Information Technology for Small and Medium Entreprises".

More than 50 entrepreneurs, instructors from the University of the AEGEAN and the private sector discussed hot issues on management and ICT, in a programme that spanned in 10 days.  Main issues in the agenda where:

• Business Planning 
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems
• Retail Systems 
• Business Financials
• Innovation Management in SME's
• New forms of entreprising in the agricultural and tourism sectors
• Case Studies: Existing business plans from agri-touristic enterprises and startups

Students of the pre-graduate and post-graduate programmes, presented innovative business plans on:

• Herbs collection and marketing 
• Wine-tourism
• University Startup Incubator (AEGEAN Startups)

... and mobile application prototypes, on:

• Karlovassi Touristic Points
• Technology News RSS Reader
• Startups information gathering and presentation
• VAT number validation for enterprises in all EU member states
• Social-media based notes distribution

From the training seminar in Samos (Day 5)

From the training seminar in Lemnos (Day 2)

More information and relative material (in Greek) can be found at:

http://samosbiz.blogspot.com

http://lemnosbiz.blogspot.com

The ENGAGE Open Data Hackathon / Datathon launch

ENGAGE Open Data Hackathon / Datathon 

Presentation Tutorial

Tuesday, 15 April 2014, 9:00‐14:30

Organiser: ENGAGE project consortium 

Host: Microsoft Innovation Center‐Greece 

Kifissias 221 Marousi 151 24 

Competition description

This is a “hybrid” Hackathon‐Datathon competition organised by the ENGAGE FP7 Project. Applicants will have the opportunity to register for the competition and then submit their entries, which  can be open‐data‐centric applications and/or innovative,  curated and re‐usable high‐quality datasets. All applicants must conform to the Eligibility Criteria stated below and all entries will be assessed based on the Selection Criteria. A panel of judges appointed by the ENGAGE consortium will assess the entries and decide on a winner and runner‐up for the Hackathon and the Datathon.

Event details 

Hackathon launch: Monday 7th April 2014 

Deadline for submissions: Monday  28th April 2014 

Winners are announced: Monday 5th May 2014 

Agenda (Invitations and presentations in English) 

Tuesday, 15 April, 2014 

09:00‐11:00  Plenary Session @ The Stage – Chair  – Fotis Karayannis, Microsoft
Innovation Center Greece  (MIC‐GR)

09:00‐09:30  Arrival – Coffee
09:30‐10:00  Open Data – George Kanellopoulos,  Senior Technology Evangelist,  Microsoft Hellas
10:00‐10:30  Open Data Initiatives in Greece– Prof. Yannis
Charalabidis, University of the Aegean

10:30‐11:00  The ENGAGE Platform – Spiros Mouzakitis (including
short live demo), ENGAGE project manager, National Technical University of
Athens

11:00 ‐11:30  Coffee Break  

11:30‐13:00  Parallel Session –Training for developers @ The Stage – Chair  – Spiros
Mouzakitis, NTUA

11:30‐12:00  Microsoft Related tools ‐ The Microsoft Business Intelligence / Power Business Intelligence ‐  Thodoris Theodorou, Senior Consultant, Microsoft Services, Microsoft Hellas
 
12:00‐12:30  The ENGAGE API, Sotiris Koussouris, ENGAGE Technical Manager, NTUA

12:30‐13:00  Application examples using the ENGAGE API– Naim Gaberlo, MIC‐GR

11:30‐13:00  Parallel Session – ENGAGE Training for journalists and data analysts @
The Factory– Chair  – Evangelos Argyzoudis, Intrasoft International

11:30‐12:00  The ENGAGE curation and visualization tools, Harris Alexopoulos, AEGEAN

12:00‐12:30  Examples of the ENGAGE usage for data curation or creation of new datasets, Evangelos Argyzoudis, INTRASOFT International S.A.

12:30‐13:00  Available datasets and success stories (transport, health, political sciences, legal, etc.), Evangelos Argyzoudis, INTRASOFT International S.A.

13:00 ‐14:00  Light Lunch Break  

14:00‐14:15  Plenary Session‐ MIC start‐up support efforts, Lydia Morazzani, Business
Operation Manager, Microsoft Innovation Center Greece

14:15‐14:30  Plenary Session – Wrap‐up and procedure for submitting applications
using the ENGAGE portal‐ Spiros Mouzakitis, ENGAGE project
coordination team, NTUA

14:30 End of the event


More information at: www.engagedata.eu | www.engage‐project.eu  

SHARE PSI 2.0 : A new project on Open Data started

Share-PSI 2.0 is a new CIP/PSP project, bringing together a critical mass of government agencies and organisations responsible for implementing the new Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive.

Lead by the W3C, the consortium includes the Open Group and Open Geospatial Consortium as fellow standards bodies plus the PSI Alliance, Open Knowledge Foundation, Open Data Institute and PwC as the primary contractor in the ISA Programme's work on interoperability. Each of these represents a community with an interest in standards for commerce, overnment and citizen-lead activity, however, Share-PSI goes much further. 16 government agencies with direct responsibility for defining and implementing an open data strategy are included in the network, covering 14 countries. Another 21 academic bodies and SMEs with a direct role in advising and implementing the PSI Directive take the tally of countries covered to 25 plus Russia.

The network will proceed via a series of 5 workshops on different themes related to the implementation of the new PSI Directive. Partners will contribute case studies of relevant work done, successful or otherwise; each workshop will include external participants selected on the basis of submitted position papers, and will generate a standalone report. The inputs and outputs from each workshop will be aggregated into a single best practices document that, through an independent process, may become a recognised W3C standard. Importantly, this document will be localised in each of the countries covered by the network. Localisation will cover language(s) but, more importantly, it will refer to the specific implementation methods that apply in those countries. For example, how to contact a specific national or city-wide data portal, which controlled vocabularies should be used, which licence(s) is/are appropriate and so on. The result will be country-specific guidance on implementing a harmonised approach to implementation of the PSI Directive on open data across at least a majority of European countries.

University of the AEGEAN / Information Systems Laboratory, is a partner in the project, with the responsibility of organising the 1st SHARE PSI 2.0 International Workshop on Open Data, in conjunction with the 5th Samos Summit on ICT-enabled Governance.

An overview of the SHARE PSI 2.0 Network