University of Koblenz-Landau (UKob)
The department of computer science has a track record of teaching and research in informatics for over 25 years and currently about 1500 students enrolled in its programmes. The department is a stronghold of research in Data Mining and Semantic Web with Professors Staab, Sure, Troitsch and Wimmer being active in a number of national and international projects in these areas. In SocialSensor, the institute for Web Science and Technologies (WeST) will participate. WeST includes 25 researchers, 5 external PhD students, and over 15 student members, and offers expertise in Semantic Web, Mobile Web, Social Web, Multimedia, Interactive Web, and Semantic Software Engineering. Since 2004, WeST (resp. its predecessor lab - ISWeb) has successfully participated in 17 EU and nationally funded projects.
Most relevant to SocialSensor is the EU Intergrated Project WeKnowIt (on collective intelligence through inputs from mobile users for emergency response and tourism applications). The mobile application STEVIE became finalist in the ISWC2009 semantic web challenge (http://west.uni-koblenz.de/Research/systeme/csxPOI). Through these projects WeST has been able to create two successful spin out companies (Kreuzverweis, Alperion) and another one is expected to start during 2011.