On Feb 26, 2025, Prof Ruben Verborgh, Sir Tim Berners-Lee & Sir Nigel Shadbolt gave a public seminar on ‘Towards re-decentralising the Web: an ethical web and data infrastructure’ at the Oxford Martin School.

In this talk, Prof Ruben Verborgh, Visiting Fellow of EWADA, was joined by Prof Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Prof Sir Nigel Shadbolt and discussed how new forms of technical and legal infrastructure are being developed and deployed to provide a more equitable and ethical treatment of individual users in the age of AI. The seminar outlined the challenges of achieving better data autonomy, providing individuals with better rights to data privacy while enabling them to benefit from the exciting possibilities of digital innovations.

The seminar, chaired by Professor Sir Charles Godfray, was well-attended by students, researchers from the university, and members of the general public. It began with an insightful overview of the need for a new form of data governance, followed by an introduction to the Solid architecture and a review of current developments in the deployment of decentralized data systems. The session concluded with an open discussion with the audience.