#SEMIC2021: Highlights and recordings are available

Nearly 600 participants registered for the digital SEMIC 2021 conference on Human-Centric Data Spaces – Powered by Interoperability, which took place on 8 December 2021.  

The second digital edition of the SEMIC conference was co-organised by the Interoperability Unit of DIGIT and the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU. The event gathered policymakers, IT practitioners, and researchers to participate in discussions on semantic interoperability for public administrations with a focus on human-centric data spaces.  

Check the conference recordings on Youtube!

The highlights 

In his opening speech, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration Johannes Hahn emphasised that the Commission is working on a strengthened European interoperability policy that “will help all of us to build interoperable public services focused on the human”. To be successful in this, we must have a consensus on semantics and data models, he pointed out.  

Director-General of the European Commission’s DG Informatics Mario Campolargo reassured that by the middle of next year the Commission will come up with a concrete proposal for a new Interoperability policy, which will be a result of the cooperation between all Member states. 

Marko Grobelnik, Digital Champion of Slovenia, gave a keynote speech on “Real-time monitoring of AI for policy development” and highlighted that semantics acts like a bridge between machines and humans.  

The conference participants had the opportunity to attend three parallel sessions. 

In the afternoon, the professor from KU Leuven Joep Crompvoets and the Program Manager from the Interoperability Unit of DG DIGIT Georges Lobo gave the floor to graduate and master students in the Interoperability Academy Speaking Corner. They pitched their research projects to the audience and were challenged by experts from Belgium and Slovenia.   

The event ended with a panel discussion on “Data Spaces & the role of semantics” and final words by Natalia Aristimuño, director of “Digital services” at DIGIT: “As we are ending our second virtual SEMIC conference, everyone understands the key benefit that the virtual conference offers: a bigger attendance! However, the SEMIC conference is also about connecting with colleagues & business partners. So hopefully SEMIC 2022 will be a hybrid event in which we can combine the best of both worlds”.  

The recordings 

You missed SEMIC 2021? We have got you covered - the recordings from the conference are available on the official Youtube channel of Interoperable Europe. 

Learn more about the SEMIC activities and visit the SEMIC community on Joinup! 

Any questions? Contact our team via DIGIT-IOPEU-COMM@ec.europa.eu. 

And see you next year at SEMIC 2022!