ONTOCHAIN announces a third batch of projects to develop blockchain-related applications for vital sectors of the economy

PRESS RELEASE | NOVEMBER 2022

The need for solutions to fight the exchange of false data on the Internet is currently being felt across various vertical domains of the European economy. The EU-funded project ONTOCHAIN is contributing to solve this issue, through the development of a software ecosystem where information can be exchanged in a trusted, traceable and transparent way.

From the 23^rd of May to the 25^th of July 2022, ONTOCHAIN looked for the best web3 innovators in Europe to further develop this software ecosystem. The project launched an open call for blockchain-based applications covering real needs of end users, as well as proposals around missing blocks of the ONTOCHAIN infrastructure.

This process resulted in the selection of 14 proposals addressing the following topics:

“ONTOCHAIN is entering its third year of implementation and concrete value creation phase! Pursuing with its initial high expectations regarding better share of knowledge and value in today’s web, ONTOCHAIN is now ready to demonstrate its potential with innovative applications pertaining to various vertical domains of the economy, also emphasising on inclusion and human rights. The ONTOCHAIN trustful architectural features, functionalities and services developed in year 1 and year 2, by redefining the ways we transact online, share ideas, and manage workflows, have seduce many application developers keen in using the features of ONTOCHAIN and sensitive to the values it supports and conveys. Indeed, more than hundred proposals were received, all as interesting as the others, leading to a tight competition between all of them to be part of the 14 selected projects", says Caroline Barelle, ONTOCHAIN Coordinator.

A total of 105 proposals from all over Europe have been submitted to this third ONTOCHAIN open call. A group of 62 experts collaborated as external evaluators with the ONTOCHAIN consortium and the process culminated in the selection of the following projects:

During a 10-month programme, the selected teams will develop interoperable and sustainable applications that employ Semantic Web and Blockchain concepts to enhance data quality aspects, as well as the trustworthiness of data communication and handling processes.

Applications will be built on top of software services of the ONTOCHAIN ecosystem, which will also be enhanced with additional key blocks, developed by the new batch of innovators now selected.

To support their innovative work, each of the 14 teams will get up to 119.500 Euros. As part of the action, experts in diverse fields will also provide them technology development guidance, working methodology, as well as access to top infrastructure, coaching, visibility and community building support.

ONTOCHAIN marries the Semantic Web with Blockchain to deliver a novel software ecosystem for trusted, traceable, and transparent ontological knowledge management. ONTOCHAIN, which is developed under the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative, explores and delivers novel interoperable on-chain and off-chain data, ontology, knowledge and information management methods.

The ONTOCHAIN software ecosystem consists of a novel protocol/Interfaces suite grouped into high-level application protocols, such as data provenance, reputation models, decentralised oracles, market mechanisms, ontology representation and management, privacy aware and secure data exchange, multi-source identity verification, value sharing and incentives and similar, and core protocols that include smart contracts, authorisation, certification, event gateways, identity management and identification, secure and privacy aware decentralised storage, data semantics and semantic linking, ONTOCHAIN optimisation and similar.

The ONTOCHAIN software ecosystem will demonstrate its potential in high impact domains, such as eHealth, eGovernment, eEducation, eCommerce, decentralised infrastructures and similar in order to achieve trustworthy information exchange and trustworthy and transactional content handling.

The project is operated by 7 partners with complementary expertise that form the core of a vibrant ecosystem: European Dynamics (Luxembourg), University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), IntelliSemantic (Italy), iExec Blockchain Tech (France), Athens University of Economics and Business (Greece), German Hellenic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Greece) and F6S (Ireland).

Website: ngi.eu | ontochain.ngi.eu

Email: press@ngi.eu

Spokesperson: Dr. Monique Calisti

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