An innovative proposal from scientists at the University of Southampton to trace the origin of data has been named a winner of an international provenance challenge.

The Hyper E-Health plan, a collaboration between experts from Southampton’s Department of Electronics and Computer Science and industrial partner Tiani Spirit, is one of four winners in the first phase of the Oh the Places Data Goes: Health Data Provenance Challenge.

The competition is being hosted by the U.S.A’s Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as it seeks to find innovative and standardised solutions for the improvement and collection of healthcare data.

Hyper E-Health’s success is being welcomed by Professor Vladimiro Sassone, Director of the University’s Cyber Security Academy, as a crucial “first step towards reliable data provenanceâ€? as it builds on recent research outcomes to offer a blockchain solution for the tracing of data origin.

“Data provenance technologies will be ubiquitous across virtually all sectors of online human activity in the future,â€? he explains. “From industrial supply chains to medical record storage and financial sector contacts, the use of distributed leger technologies like blockchain may play a major role in ensuring reliable data provenance. “The growing team at the University of Southampton is working in new and innovative uses of distributed ledger technology and has already made significant contributions in a number of application areas. We are delighted that our team’s contribution to this particular project was essential in winning this award.â€?

The project’s proposal is based on existing standards such as the Sequoia Project and the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN). These have been reinterpreted in the blockchain context, a technique which could for the first time realise fully decentralised software systems, ensuring high integrity guarantees and democratic control of data.

The Hyper E-Health team, which has involved Southampton Research Fellow Andrea Margheri, has been awarded $20,000 and will now compete in the next round of the competition to test the proposed solution and present real-world findings.

Find out more about the Oh the Places Data Goes: Health Data Provenance Challenge at: www.cccinnovationcenter.com/challenges/provenance-challenge/

Data Pitch, a new accelerator led by Electronics and Computer Science expertise at the University of Southampton, is set to bring together businesses, organisations and startups to meet the modern world’s challenges with data.

The three-year project will provide up to 50 European startups and SME’s with world-class business support including up to €100,000 equity free funding, expert mentoring, investment opportunities and access to data from businesses and the public sector.

Data Pitch will be delivered by the University of Southampton, the Open Data Institute, Portuguese company Beta-i and French data marketplace platform Dawex. It is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and follows the success of the Open Data Incubator for Europe (ODINE) programme.

Professor Elena Simperl, Data Pitch project Director and researcher in Southampton’s Web and Internet Science (WAIS) group, says: “Data Pitch is doing something very different and important for the digital economy. It is the first ever data accelerator built to bring together organisations from all over Europe that own data and would like to see it used to solve some of their most interesting business problems, with startups which have fresh ideas for data products and services. Over the past six months Data Pitch has worked together with various stakeholders to design an open competition for startups and SMEs from all over the EU, built on 12 data challenges.

“Some of these challenges have been defined together with data sharing organisations in our network; others have been defined through consultations with the public and experts. I am very happy with the result, as I believe it truly illustrates the diversity of the EU data economy: from cross cutting business challenges, such as how to extract value from supply chain data and customer records, to how to design new AI algorithms, apps and services in vital areas such as healthcare, manufacturing, transport or tourism. As we're launching the call for proposals, I am very much looking forward to see hundreds of new, creative ideas on how to solve these challenges coming through.â€?

Applications are open for Data Pitch’s first cohort, which will begin a six-month programme in February 2018. Startups and SME’s have until 1st October to enter, with successful companies invited to interviews the week commencing 30th October.

The project has also announced the first official data providers: businesses and other organisations who will share their data and who have already helped define the challenges for startups to address. They include: â—? German rail company Deutsche Bahn â—? Data management provider Uniserv GmBH â—? Italian big data and machine learning company SpazioDati â—? Portuguese retail business Sonae Retail â—? The UK’s IMIN, an open data scaleup working with health and fitness data which previously went through the ODINE programme.

The challenges will relate to issues in Retail, Sports & Recreation, Data Analytics, Transport, Data Management, Health & Wellness, Empowering Users Online, Lifelong Learning, Living, Smart Manufacturing, Logistics & Maintenance and Tourism.

For more information, including the process for applications to the first cohort, visit: www.datapitch.eu

Kirk Martinez, Professor of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton has been selected by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Honors Program in recognition of his internationally acclaimed work on environmental sensor networks.

He will deliver the Leptoukh Lecture keynote at the AGU’s annual conference in New Orleans this December.

Kirk has used technology to study the environment in several high profile projects as he established a reputation as a leading expert in Internet of Things sensing research.

Research interests across a 20-year career within Southampton’s Department of Electronics and Computer Science have ranged from observing the hydrological processes of the Cairngorm plateau through to innovating autonomous sub-glacial probes for glaciology research.

The Leptoukh Lecture, which is named after the late Dr Greg Leptoukh from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, is arranged by the AGU’s Earth & Space Sciences Informatics Group and recognises outstanding work being pioneered within the computational and data sciences. “It is wonderful to be recognised by the AGU, which has helped to build this interdisciplinary area into its massive event,â€? he says.

The University of Southampton’s Glacsweb project has been monitoring glacier behaviour under Kirk’s direction as a Principal Investigator since 2003. The programme, which has benefited from five grants ranging from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to the Leverhulme Trust, has contributed to fundamental research in glaciology and wireless sensor networks.

Glacsweb has been deployed in Norway and Iceland, placing custom sensor probes in, on and under glaciers. In 2016, the team also worked with Formula E in Greenland to deploy a live Iceberg Tracker, which is being further developed for deployment in Iceland this summer. His team also deployed the first environmental sensing system based on modern internet and web standards, in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland.

You can find out more about these projects at: glacsweb.org and mountainsensing.org