By empowering people to take control of their own data, we create a sustainable ecosystem of unprecedented innovation. The future belongs not to data harvesters, but to smart reusers.

Ruben Verborgh

I’m a Professor of Decentralized Web Technology at IDLab of Ghent University – imec and a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School within the University of Oxford.
I’m the Head of Data Interoperability at Inrupt and an advisor to other companies. From this hybrid academic and industrial perspective, my professional mission is to support Solid in inspiring, transforming, and reshaping our data-driven society.

As a computer scientist, I investigate how decentralized knowledge graphs on the Web can lead us into the post-Big Data era, where companies realize that data harvesting as a business model is a dead end. The future consists of lots of small data that is linked. People will be in control of where they store their data and with whom they share it, independently of the services they use. I’m researching and implementing technologies that enable us to effect this socio-economic change on both a local and a global scale.

Blog

I’ve blogged about Linked Data, Web APIs, and JavaScript, but the bulk of my writings nowadays cover the present and future of the Solid ecosystem:

A data ecosystem fosters sustainable innovation

By equipping people with personal data vaults, we can leverage more data for better services.

Paradigm shifts for the decentralized Web

As separate markets for data and apps emerge, Web development needs to adopt a new shape.

Reflections of knowledge

Designing Web APIs for sustainable interactions within decentralized knowledge graph ecosystems.

Let’s talk about pods

A new solution space for apps emerges if we adopt a better model for thinking about Solid.

Publications

Discover my ongoing research through my recent publications:

• Reinforcement Learning-based SPARQL Join Ordering Optimizer poster

  Ruben Eschauzier, Ruben Taelman, Meike Morren, and Ruben Verborgh 2023

  Proceedings of the 20^th Extended Semantic Web Conference details BibTeX

• RDF Surfaces: Computer Says No workshop

  Patrick Hochstenbach, Jos De Roo, and Ruben Verborgh 2023

  Proceedings of the 1^st Workshop on Trusting Decentralised Knowledge Graphs and Web Data details full text BibTeX

• Distributed Social Benefit Allocation using Reasoning over Personal Data in Solid workshop

  Jonni Hanski, Pieter Heyvaert, Ben De Meester, Ruben Taelman, and Ruben Verborgh 2023

  Proceedings of the 1^st International Workshop on Data Management for Knowledge Graphs details full text BibTeX

• Trusting Decentralised Knowledge Graphs and Web Data at the Web Conference conference

  John Domingue, Aisling Third, Maria-Esther Vidal, Philipp Rohde, Juan Cano, Andrea Cimmino, and Ruben Verborgh 2023

  Companion Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2023 details full text BibTeX

• Distributed Subweb Specifications for Traversing the Web journal

  Bart Bogaerts, Bas Ketsman, Younes Zeboudj, Heba Aamer, Ruben Taelman, and Ruben Verborgh 2023

  Theory and Practice of Logic Programming details full text BibTeX

See all my publications…