After the initial meetings in early March of the present year, the Time Machine Project organized the Pillar 1 Workshops Meeting in Amsterdam last week. The main goal of the 2-day meeting was to start working on the different project roadmaps, which will be presented to the European Commission next year for its final approval.
Upon arrival to the meetings, hosted at the University of Amsterdam many buildings in the city center, I met Gustavo Riva who joined the project a couple of months ago and is helping in the overall organization. Frederic Kaplan, from the EPFL and part of the Time Machine Coordination & Support Action Executive Team, gave an inaugural presentation of the project and the main objectives to meet during this first year funded by the European Commission with one million euros. Afterwards, the attendees were split into groups to work in the different themes. LiNHD POSTDATA aims to be involved in Computing and AI, which is part of the Work Package 2, together with Data and Theory. In terms of Computing and AI, POSTDATA has a lot to offer in terms of expertise in Natural Language Processing for old-Spanish and other European languages. As per Data, the core of POSTDATA is to develop an ontology of the European Poetry, which enables to contribute in the modeling aspects necessary of the Time Machine.
Another important aspect that relates more to LiNHD is the notion of the Local Time Machines, for which the laboratory might be able to start a collaboration with some local actors in Madrid.
Overall, despite a mildly worrisome sense of vastness, the project seems well positioned and on track. Major collaborators are already taking a central role, which is of the utmost importance for the success of the project at the European level. Next year the European Commission will announce the grantees of the next 10-year projects. Hopefully, Time Machine will be there and LiNHD POSTDATA will be involved.