Erik Mannens is the Director at imec UAntwerp IDLab and a Professor at UAntwerp (Sustainable AI) and Ghent University (Semantic Intelligence). He earned his PhD in Computer Science Engineering (2011) from UGent, his Master’s in Computer Science (1995) from K.U. Leuven University, and his Master’s in Electro-Mechanical Engineering (1992) from KAHO Ghent.

Now over 50, Erik focuses exclusively on projects that positively impact society and "Spaceship Earth" as a whole. He champions #SustainableDevelopmentGoals and took on the Operational Lead of SOLID Lab Flanders in 2022. Currently, he leads imec - UAntwerp - IDLab, steering a Data Science team of over 125 Wireless Communication & AI experts dedicated to researching the sustainability of AI.

Before this, Erik led a Data Science team of over 50 Semantic Technologies & Artificial Intelligence researchers at Ghent University for more than a decade. He is deeply involved in the Open Source, Open Access, and Open Knowledge movements and participates in Smart City "City of Things" & Open Knowledge Foundation initiatives in Flanders.

Erik joined imec-IDLab in 2005 as a project manager after over a decade as a software engineering consultant and Java architect. He has been a pivotal figure in the (Linked) Open Data movement in Flanders, founding the first Hackathons and the Open Knowledge Foundation (Belgian Chapter). He is a regular speaker on Linked Open Data, Smart Cities, and Ethical AI at national and international events and actively participates in several W3C standardization groups. His team maintains the Open Sourced Linked Open Data Publishing frameworks TheDataTank, R&Wbase, RML, Linked Data Fragments, SOLID, and Communica.

Specialties: Sustainable AI, Ethical AI, Semantic Web, (Linked) Open Data, Big Data Analytics, W3C standardization, Java architect, iDTv, web development from its inception.