Unlocking the Potential of Health Data with Personal Online Datastores

ESPRESSO Workshop

on

Decentralized Search

In a world where health data is at the forefront of our digital lives, the need for data privacy and control has become paramount. Today’s Web landscape confines user-generated health data within centralized data silos, limiting individuals’ autonomy and insight into the management and utilization of their own health information. These developments have highlighted the crucial importance of individual sovereignty when it comes to personal health data. This paradigm shift has given rise to new approaches in application development, focusing on personal online data stores known as “pods.” In these systems, individuals have full authority over which applications can access their personal health data and specify the purposes for which such access is granted. However, the journey toward decentralization presents its own set of challenges, particularly when it comes to enabling secure and efficient search and distributed queries over such decentralized platforms. 

To this end, our workshop seeks to blend research and industry engagement, encouraging active participation from the public. Our primary goal is to collectively explore viable solutions and engage in fruitful discussions that address the challenges of decentralized web search and privacy-preserving information retrieval, especially in the context of health data.  This workshop offers a structured and interactive platform, fostering knowledge exchange and collaboration within the specified timeframe and objectives. We firmly believe that workshops that bridge industry and academia will play a pivotal role in advancing our understanding and development of decentralized online services. Through these collaborative efforts, we aim to drive the creation of new techniques and technologies that can revolutionize the way we store and process our personal (health) data. Ultimately, this research trajectory has the potential to pave the way for innovative approaches that could influence the global adoption of transformative systems, revolutionizing how personal health data is managed and enhancing data sovereignty for individuals. Your participation is key to shaping the future of health data privacy and security. 

DATE AND VENUE: 

REGISTRATION LINK: 

  • Participation is free of charge but requires registration. Kindly fill out the form [https://shorturl.at/hkTVY] to confirm your participation.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE: 

  • Mohamed Ragab, University of Southampton 
  • Thanassis Tiropanis, University of Southampton 
  • Helen Oliver, Birkbeck, University of London 
  • Alexandra Poulovassilis, Birkbeck, University of London 
  • Age Chapman, University of Southampton 
  • George Roussos, Birkbeck, University of London 

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME: 

Day 1:  

9:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Registration and Breakfast 

10:00 AM – 10:30AM: Opening Remarks 

10:30 AM – 11:15 AM: Keynote 1, Prof. Jon Crowcroft

  • The Case for Decentralized Online Platforms 

11:15 AM – 11:30 AM: Coffee Break 

11:30 AM – 12:15 PM: Keynote 2, Prof. Irene Ng 

  • Trends and Challenges in Decentralized Web and Privacy 

12:15 PM- 12:45 PM: Empowering Secure Search on the Decentralized Web 

12:45 PM – 1:45 PM: Lunch 

1:45 PM – 2:45 PM: Keynote 3 

  • Privacy in the Healthcare Domain (Speaker to be confirmed) 
  • Perspectives on Global Decentralized Search Strategies, Jackson Morgan 

2:45 PM – 3:00 PM: Coffee Break 

3:00 PM – 3:45 PM: Panel Discussion, Moderated by Prof. Age Chapman 

3:45 PM – 4:45 PM: Breakout Session  

4:45 PM – 5:30 PM: Reporting back from break-out groups & Closing Remarks from Day 1 

6:00 PM-8:00 PM: Workshop Reception 

  • Institute of Computer Science, Birkbeck, University of London, 5th Floor 

Day 2: 

9:30 AM – 10:00 AM Registration and Breakfast 

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Tutorial on SOLID (by Jackson Morgan) and on Dataswyft 

11:00 AM -11:30 AM Hackathon launch (including quick demo): Let’s make “Populate Personal Datastores” Apps!

11:30 AM Hackathon activity starts – Coffee available 

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Lunch available 

2:30 – 3:00 PM: Solid Surgery (seek help for your App) – Coffee available 

4:30 PM – 5:00 PM: Reports from the Hackathon 

5:00 PM – 5:30 PM: Closing Remarks, Acknowledgments and Next Steps