I believe in a Web on which
clients possess more intelligence
than the servers they use.

Ruben Verborgh

I’m a professor of Semantic Web technology at IDLab, Ghent University – imec, and a research affiliate at the Decentralized Information Group of CSAIL at MIT. I’m a technology advocate at Inrupt for the Solid ecosystem of apps that let you keep your own data. I love to discuss about the Web, decentralization, hypermedia clients, Web APIs, Linked Data, and much more. If you like these things too, then we should talk.

My belief is that if we want to see intelligent clients, we should stop trying to build intelligent servers. We need to focus on designing a new generation of Web applications that emphasize serendipitous reuse of data and functionality through decentralization.

Of course, I practice what I preach and publish my own data as Linked Open Data. You can query my data live on the Web, even across multiple datasets.

Blog

If you’re into Linked Data, Web APIs, REST, JavaScript, communication, research, or if you’re just curious, check out my latest blog posts:

Paradigm shifts for the decentralized Web

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

Truth takes time

Decentralized technologies can restore information diversity—if we set our expectations right.

Use the Web instead

Native mobile apps lure us away from the Web under false pretenses, and we shouldn’t let them.

Projects

I’m involved in several projects, including:

Solid

Use the apps you need, store your data where you want.

Linked Data Fragments

Query Linked Data on a Web scale by moving intelligence to the client.

RDF Mapping Language (RML)

Combine data from heterogeneous sources through the power of Linked Data.

Publications

Discover the research I’m into through my recent publications:

• Decentralizing the Semantic Web through incentivized collaboration conference

  Ruben Verborgh 2018

  Proceedings of the 17^th International Semantic Web Conference: Blue Sky Track details full text BibTeX

• Towards a Uniform User Interface for Editing Data Shapes workshop

  Ben De Meester, Pieter Heyvaert, Anastasia Dimou, and Ruben Verborgh 2018

  Proceedings of the 4^th International Workshop on Visualization and Interaction for Ontologies and Linked Data details full text BibTeX

• Demonstration of Comunica, a Web framework for querying heterogeneous Linked Data interfaces demo

  Joachim Van Herwegen, Ruben Taelman, Miel Vander Sande, and Ruben Verborgh 2018

  Proceedings of the 17^th International Semantic Web Conference: Posters and Demos details full text BibTeX

• GraphQL-LD: Linked Data Querying with GraphQL demo

  Ruben Taelman, Miel Vander Sande, and Ruben Verborgh 2018

  Proceedings of the 17^th International Semantic Web Conference: Posters and Demos details full text BibTeX

• Comunica: a Modular SPARQL Query Engine for the Web conference

  Ruben Taelman, Joachim Van Herwegen, Miel Vander Sande, and Ruben Verborgh 2018

  Proceedings of the 17^th International Semantic Web Conference details full text BibTeX

See all my publications…