ECHOLOT at the the AI-Bridges Symposium

The AI-BRIDGES symposium took place at the Senate House, University of London, on 29 May. The event, which took place under the theme ‘Bridging Institutions, Open Knowledge, and AI’, brought together a wide range of stakeholders, including Wikimedia chapters and affiliates, researchers, academics, technologists, open knowledge advocates, policymakers and funders. It focused on the urgent need to address the threats and opportunities posed by the ever-increasing use of AI methods in open knowledge spaces around the world. 

Hosted by Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Professor Charles Burdett, and Professor Jane Winters, the symposium was opened by the Bridges partners and affiliates, including the School of Advanced Study, University of London, the Wikimedia chapters in Germany, the UK, Brazil and Switzerland, Open Future and Pleias. This was followed by a series of panel and roundtable discussions. 

ECHOLOT project coordinator, Lozana Rossenova from TIB, joined an expert panel to address the most urgent topics relevant to knowledge organisation on the web and AI applications. ECHOLOT’s approach was presented as one of the practical routes to increase collaboration across Wikimedia and EU academic communities through shared workflows that employ AI in a supportive, rather than extractive function.

Adrián Cuadrón from HiTZ Zentroa (UPV/EHU) and Marc Maillard from Wikimedia Sverige (who are also ECHOLOT partners) joined roundtables held at the end of the symposium, alongside Product Manager Leif Lobinsky from Wikimedia Deutschland. They discussed issues and development roadmaps for structured data wiki applications such as Wikibase and Wikidata, in the context of research and GLAM needs, as represented by the symposium participants. The workshop confirmed that ECHOLOT’s commitment to automating and simplifying the ingestion, enrichment and export of data to and from MediaWiki software is extremely timely, given the increased pressures on researchers and open knowledge enthusiasts.

We were honoured to be part of this important event and we are looking forward to the next steps and exploring future collaboration opportunities!

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