Skip to main content
Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI)
  1. Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI)
  2. News & Events
  3. Events 2026
  4. Items

DERI Seminar with Elena Simperl, Professor of Computer Science at King's College London

When: Thursday, April 23, 2026, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Where: Teams

Speaker: Elena Simperl, Professor of Computer Science at King's College London

Prof Elena Simperl  is Co-director, King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence; and President, Semantic Web Science Association

From static portals to intelligent ecosystems: Architecting the future of national open data

Abstract: The traditional open data portal, often a "data graveyard" of fragmented CSVs, is undergoing a radical transformation. As nations race to build robust AI infrastructures, the role of open data has shifted from a transparency requirement to the foundational fuel for sovereign AI. In this talk, I will provide a comprehensive blueprint for these times, drawing on recent projects at King's College London and the Open Data Institute that explore the role of Large Language Models (LLMs) in designing and improving national-scale data architecture.

I will show how LLMs are being deployed to solve the two oldest problems in the field: the friction of publishing and the frustration of discovery. Central to this discussion is the concept of "AI readiness", a proposed evaluative framework for determining the suitability of datasets for AI consumption. I will illustrate how we applied the framework to meet the structural and engineering requirements for a National Data Library (NDL). By treating the NDL as a high-availability, AI-ready data product, we outline a reproducible pipeline for leveraging existing ML tools and standards to manage heterogeneous datasets and create nation-wide data assets that aren't just open, but useful, machine-consumable and ethically sound.

Bio: Elena Simperl is a Professor of Computer Science at King’s College London, where she co-directs the King's Institute for Artificial Intelligence. She is also the Director of Research at the Open Data Institute, a Fellow of the British Computer Society and the Royal Society of Arts, and a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow. Elena’s work is at the intersection between AI and social computing. She features in the top 100 most influential scholars in knowledge engineering of the last decade and the Women in AI 2000 ranking. Elena co-chairs the Croissant working group in ML Commons, developing an open standard to improve data portability, discovery and use in AI. She is the president of the Semantic Web Science Association.

 

________________________________________________________________________________

Microsoft Teams meeting

Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/34194251691904?p=Thvj9AV3RLBcavA3qc

Meeting ID: 341 942 516 919 04

Passcode: 6sJ6wu9k

 

Need help? | System reference

For organizers: Meeting options

________________________________________________________________________________

 

Back to top