Valencia hosts the fourth DataBeersVLC meeting aimed at all audiences

On November 9, Valencia will host the DataBeersVLC no29 event, jointly organized by the DataBeersVLC collective and the Open Government area of the Valencia City Council, which can also be followed live on the Internet. The program includes four talks on data, three of which will focus on open data. 

DataBeers is a non-profit initiative that is present all over the world. This organization aims to create a worldwide community of data lovers and for this purpose organizes events open to the general public, where they share the most advanced results and methods in Data Science in an understandable way in an informal environment. DataBeers was born in Madrid in 2014 but has already spread around the world and is currently present in 25 cities in different countries. 

In Spain it has presence in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga o Valencia, among other locations. In the latter, the DataBeersVLC community that was born in 2016, organizes the fourth edition of AI & Dataviz on November 9 at 19:00h at the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Octubre. In line with its goal of bringing data closer to all types of audiences, the meeting will be streamed live through its Youtube channel. In addition, all talks will be recorded and can be viewed later through the same medium. 

Open data in the fight against climate change, the improvement of tourism and agriculture

The day's program includes four talks. As usual in DataBeers events, the talks will be short, around ten minutes, in a language that can be understood by all kinds of audiences. The relaxed atmosphere created and the didactic tone of the speakers make it possible to bring the world of data closer to the attendees. 

On this occasion, the first talk will deal with 'Air quality in Valencia' and will be given by Inmaculada Coma, professor of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Valencia and director of the Chair of Artificial Intelligence and Information Visualization of this academic institution. 

This talk will present the data from the different monitoring network stations of the city of Valencia that are available in tne open data portal of the City Council and will review the evolution of pollution in the city thanks to the analysis and visualization of this information. This is an example of how open data can help to raise public awareness in a context of climate change and energy transition.

Another of the topics to be addressed at this meeting is tourism, where open data is playing a key role in the sector's transition towards sustainability and digitalization. Laya Targa, data scientist, will present a 'Visualization and optimization of tourist routes in the city of Valencia'. Targa is a member of the Data Interaction and Augmentation Research Group (DINA) and a technician in the ClioViz project at the Institute of Robotics and Information and Communication Technologies (IRTIC) at the University of Valencia. The talk will address some of the innovative data-driven strategies that serve to improve the planning and enjoyment of routes through different monuments in the city. It will explore visualization techniques and demonstrate how routes can be optimized thanks to data and achieve a better experience for tourists that is at the same time respectful of the city and its inhabitants. 

Ferran Fernandez will address a talk on data farming, specifically on 'Saving water with predictive irrigation models'. Fernandez, a specialist in AgTech, will start from the fact that agriculture consumes the largest amount of fresh water in the world, with emphasis on the increasingly frequent episodes of extreme droughts. Thus, he will delve into the need to establish strategies that enable more efficient, sustainable and profitable agriculture. 

In this area, we cannot forget that the digital transformation is enabling the agricultural sector to modernize and move towards what is known as precision agriculture. In this process, data is a fundamental tool for farmers to know exactly what is happening in their crops and to be able to make more efficient decisions in terms of production and more environmentally sustainable. Water resource management is a key part of this process and this talk will explore in depth the new possibilities that open data offers in this area. 

In addition to the applications of open data in different sectors, during the conference Ricard Martínez, director of the Microsoft Chair of Privacy and Digital Transformation at the University of Valencia, will talk about data protection, a topic that usually arouses great interest among citizens. In the era of artificial intelligence that we are beginning, privacy is one of the main concerns and for this, it is necessary to maintain the balance between open access to information and the protection of personal data to ensure the privacy of individuals. The talk will discuss how to protect them from the design and traceability, fleeing from radical solutions such as prohibiting the processing of data. 

In short, the program of the fourth edition of AI & Dataviz organized by DataBeersVLC will show the use of open data in areas with a direct and very visible impact on society. The dissemination of the use of open data is essential to promote trust in data and digital infrastructures, as well as to raise public awareness of some of the challenges we face today, such as climate change. 

To attend the event in person, all you need to do is register here. It is also possible to follow the live webcast by connecting to the DataBeersVLC channel on YouTube.