Report of the May 2021 KG4SG Workshop

Attended by over 70 participants, the second Workshop on Knowledge Graphs for Social Good (KG4SG) featured an amazing variety of applications of knowledge graphs as well as lively discussion by our speakers and panel of experts.

Participants at the 3 May workshop learned how graphs were helpful in Papua New Guinea to determine optimal strategy to be used in case of a disaster; how graphs can help preserve cultural knowledge (example: stories about food), and how to make knowledge graphs accessible to people with low resources and various levels of literacy, using SMS text messages and Raspberry Pi’s. In addition, a panel of experts discussed the use of graphs in humanitarian operations.

The workshop program can be found below, and for a limited time anyone interested in learning more about knowledge graphs and their applications for social good can access the video recording.

Organized by the Knowledge Graphs for Social Good initiative and supported by the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT) and Accenture Labs, the Workshop was targeted to practitioners of knowledge graphs methods, related domain subject matter experts, and anyone working to leverage knowledge graphs for social good.

Program:

  • Welcome and Introduction from the Organizers (Lambert Hogenhout, Vivek Khetan and Bogdan Sacaleanu)
  • Keynote by Tina Comes, Associate Professor, Delft University of Technology and Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative: “Data for Good – A Resilience Perspective”
  • Fireside Chat – Tina Comes and Vivek Khetan
  • Presentation - Victor de Boer,  assistant professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) and senior research fellow at Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision: “Bringing Knowledge Graphs to the Rural Poor”
  • Presentation – Davar Ardalan, Executive Producer of Audio at National Geographic: “The Indigenous Knowledge Graph (IKG)”
  • Presentation - Timea Turdean, Co-Founder BELONGin.work, Austria: “BELONGing Knowledge Graph”
  • Presentation - Tek Raj Chhetri, Researcher at Universität Innsbruck, Austria : “Automated decision system in sociotechnical settings”
  • Panel on the use of Knowledge Graphs in Humanitarian Aid Operations
    • Moderator: Patrick Gordon, Head, Information & Communications Technology at UN
    • Panelists:
      • Andrej Verity, Information Management Officer at United Nations
      • Tara Rafaat, Semantic/Metadata architect-CTO Office, Bloomberg
      • Alison Goodrum, Director of Customer Success, StarDog
      • Vivek Khetan, R&D Research Associate, Accenture Labs
      • Tina Comes, Associate Professor TU Delft

Thanks to everyone who contributed and participated!