Michalis Vafopoulos

The Greek Free / Open Source Software Society (GFOSS) is a non-profit organization, which was founded in 2008 by 25 Universities, Technological Education Institutes and Research Centers. Our major goal is to promote the use and development of Open Technologies for Education, Public Administration and Business in Greece. We, therefore, aspire to become a knowledge hub and a platform for dialogue on Free Software, Open Content & Open Hardware and their benefits. The major Greek Universities, Research Centers and Technological Institutes are members of the GFOSS, while leading members of the Greek community of Open Technologies users and developers play a major role in the implementation of our actions, through mutual cooperation and active participation. GFOSS is affiliated with Creative Commons and a founding member of COMMUNIA. GFOSS experts share extensive multidisciplinary experience in the development and operation of major transparency and public engagement projects in Greece. These include the projects on electronic deliberation for participatory decision making and open innovation and collaboration contests.

Businesses over time face three unchanged fundamental questions: to whom can I sell? where are my customers? and who are indeed my (potential) customers? Today the big change is that there is a plethora of diverse data ranging from open government data (e.g. company beneficial owners and public contracts) to internal enterprise data (e.g. detailed customer transactions from different applications). Consequently, an emerging crucial demand for modern businesses is how to transform this data in useful information capable to provide better answers to the aforementioned questions. These needs can be captured under the term “Analytics”, which is the 2nd trend in digital transformation according to Forbes and are partially reflected to the 28.5 billion dollars value of the “market data and analysis” market. Linked Business addresses this issue by providing market intelligence solutions that blend open with enterprise data. Specifically, our products can be seen from a dual aspect: 1. Sales and Marketing: we assist businesses to discover new customers in specific industries based on simple or advanced metrics such as business survival rates at specific locations and to update their Business Intelligence systems (e.g. CRM) with fresh and detailed corporate data. We also help them run targeted marketing campaigns in selected market segments that can be enriched with high value information such as mobile phone locations and customer preferences extracted from royalty programs. 2. KYC (or due diligence or Customer Identification): our products contribute to KYC starting from reports about changes in the basic company profile (e.g. status, address, activity, filings, ownership and management) and extend market intelligence by introducing metrics to assess systemic risks based on detailed business networks and associated persons.

The Greek Free / Open Source Software Society (GFOSS) is a non-profit organization, which was founded in 2008 by 25 Universities, Technological Education Institutes and Research Centers. Our major goal is to promote the use and development of Open Technologies for Education, Public Administration and Business in Greece. We, therefore, aspire to become a knowledge hub and a platform for dialogue on Free Software, Open Content & Open Hardware and their benefits. The major Greek Universities, Research Centers and Technological Institutes are members of the GFOSS, while leading members of the Greek community of Open Technologies users and developers play a major role in the implementation of our actions, through mutual cooperation and active participation. GFOSS is affiliated with Creative Commons and a founding member of COMMUNIA. GFOSS experts share extensive multidisciplinary experience in the development and operation of major transparency and public engagement projects in Greece. These include the projects on electronic deliberation for participatory decision making and open innovation and collaboration contests.