Interview with Mariano Rico, responsible for qMe-Aporta, third prize of Desafio Aporta 2017

qMe-Aporta, third prize winner at Desafío Aporta 2017, is a prototype for the intuitive construction of queries, in guided natural language, based on datos.gob.es knowledge. It is a system that guides the user in the construction of the question, showing multiple alternatives to start and continue the question. It not only uses the system terms (metadata), but also the data and its synonyms. These questions can be asked in several languages.

We have spoken with Mariano Rico Almodóvar, researcher at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and responsible for this initiative, to tell us how he is carrying out this project.

Currently, at what of qMe-Aporta development are you?

We are waiting for funding. It is a pity that a system so useful, from our point of view, for the reuse of data from public administrations is stopped, but it is. We made the effort, at zero cost, to analyze the application of Dylan-Q system (the core of qMe-Aporta) to the datasets related to Desafío Aporta (datos.gob.es) but we have not yet been able to create the system.

I'm applying Dylan-Q to a European project called SlideWiki, and that's where we hope to achieve the visibility needed for private funding. We also trust that the UPM Technologies Catalog (Dylan-Q technology is part of it), will give us enough visibility to attract customers or investors.

What information sources, public or private, is your project based on?

Dylan-Q technology is applied to RDF datasets, the standard semantic data format. In the case of Desafío Aporta, we focus on RDF datasets from datos.gob.es, where there is all kinds of data: trade, demography, education, etcetera. Most of the 2018 datasets that were available on the date of the contest were not RDF datasets. But it should be noted that we have tools to convert RDF datasets (files and databases) in any format.

Semantic technologies allow us to integrate information much more easily than with traditional techniques. If we add to this the lexicalization of the ontologies and a bit of magic (we have a positive patent report of the Dylan-Q technology), we achieve systems that allow guided consultations in natural language related to any RDF data set.

Do you think that initiatives such as the Desafio Aporta 2017 can help companies and entrepreneurs launch their open data reuse projects? What other initiatives of this kind do you think should be put into practice?

The visibility that these awards give us is very important, but other elements are necessary to be able to materialize these projects. It is common for companies to be interested in projects they know through awards like this one, but they usually demand the development at zero cost of a prototype (what in the jargon is called "proof of concept"). In addition, although the results of the prototype are good, the full implementation of the project is not guaranteed. It is also common for potential investors to demand exclusive dedication without pay for a period of up to two years. There is a tendency to think of innovation as a lottery in which it is known that one in ten start-ups will be successful and will considerably multiply their investment, but, in general, long-term investment criteria are not followed and the objective is just to make the investment profitable within a typical period of two years. In these conditions it is very difficult to undertake.

In countries such as Germany or the United States, the idea of ​​a non-repayable investment is more widespread among companies. They understand that you have to take risks to win, and are willing to assume the cost of risk. There is no fear of "failure", which is seen as something natural in innovation processes. On the contrary, it is very widespread in the companies of our country that the risk should be assumed by the Administration or, as our case, the researchers. A century after the sentence of Unamuno " Let them do the inventing", The situation seems not to have changed. And I do not believe that it is a matter of higher or lesser economy, or of major or minor economic crisis, traditional excuses to condition the investment in R & D, but of a higher culture of innovation investment. In fact, we have known for a long time that investment in R + D + I is what makes countries more or less prosperous, and not vice versa.

But do not lose heart. We continue attending all meetings that organizations request. We dream of a company that is willing to risk a small amount, say 30 thousand euros, for us to make a prototype adapted to their business and a sample of their data, for 6 months. If that prototype convinces them, we would make a new project using all data and  the entire business model. Who wants to be the first?

But in spite of all that has been said, I must insist that initiatives as Aporta or those promoted by the Technological Innovation Support Center (CAIT) of the UPM are excellent for bringing together technologists and companies. There should be meetings of this type more frequently.

As a user of open data, what challenges have you found when reusing public information? How have you solved those challenges?

The main challenge has been, and still is, to find the dataset that best suits our needs. Sometimes it is a single dataset, but most of the time we want several datasets initially unrelated. I think it is illustrated with the phrase "in a sea of ​​data, we fish with a rod". We need more powerful tools to be able to fish more efficiently.

The search for information is a difficult problem when the volume of data increases, not so much by the number of data of a given type, but by the number of data categories and the relationships between them. Semantic technologies allow us to relate categories of data and give them meaning, so we can address this problem with more chances of success.

What actions do you consider that Spain should prioritize in terms of data provision?

I think you have to clearly divide the tasks. On the one hand, local administrations must collect the data. On the other hand, the General Administration must provide the necessary tools so that the local administrations incorporate in a simple and efficient way the collected data. The initiative datos.gob.es works in this line, but you can still go further. For example, it is necessary to integrate the data collected by local administrations, that is, link data categories. It could be facilitated through the use of semantic technologies. Once the information is integrated, the Administration could offer new services to users, such as the one provided by QMe-Aporta, and many others that we still cannot imagine.

Finally, what are your future plans? Are you immersed or have any other open data reuse project in mind?

In our research group we have several projects that use open data, in what has been called "citizen science", such as Farolapp (http://farolapp.linkeddata.es), or Stars4All (http://stars4all.eu), but perhaps our main contribution is the Spanish DBpedia (es.dbpedia.org). We have a project with the Spanish multinational TAIGER to increase the quality of Spanish DBpedia data, and we have developed several techniques with very good results. In June (2018) we organized the first international congress of knowledge graphs applied to tourism and travel, where we have confirmed the importance of this sector, which represents 14% of Spanish GDP and 10% worldwide. We think that the information stored in the Spanish DBpedia can be very useful for this economic sector. You have to know that 40% of the DBpedia data in Spanish is only found in our DBpedia.

Most of the techniques we have applied to DBpedia can be applied to other data sets, so that open data can benefit from these techniques.

Fortunately, we continue to research and develop projects where we apply our knowledge on semantic technologies, natural language processing and machine learning. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those responsible for the research group, Asunción Gómez Pérez and Oscar Corcho, for the trust they have placed in us, and the time they have allowed us to spend in this contest.