From Relational Databases to the Semantic Web — New W3C Standards and Directions
  Ivan Herman   Ivan Herman
Semantic Web Activity Lead
World Wide Web Consortium
 


 

Wednesday, June 23, 2010
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Level:  Technical – Introductory


Wouldn’t it be great if you could map data in your SQL database to Linked Data with a simple click of a button? Currently, mapping data from relational databases involves choosing among many different, customized solutions. A new W3C standard for mapping relational data to RDF is being created by the RDB2RDF Working Group based on the best practices of current approaches. This exciting work should allow current data in relational databases to be transformed to RDF with a minimum of effort, creating a standardized mapping language that will allow the market to concentrate optimization and custom features rather than re-inventing the wheel. However, a number of important issues need to be confronted by the industry and community at the intersection of Linked Data, SPARQL, and SQL.

This panel discussion will be chaired by Ivan Herman (W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead) and feature Eric Prud’hommeaux and Harry Halpin (W3C Staff Contacts for RDB2RDF WG), Ahmed Ezzat (co-Chair of RDB2RDF WG), Souri Das (Oracle), Orri Erlang (OpenLink), and Juan Sequada (Univ. of Texas-Austin).


Harry Halpin is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. He is also a W3C Fellow, where he is the staff contact for the RDB2RDF Working Group, co-chair of the Social Web Incubator Group with Dan Brickley, and is a member of the W3C Semantic Web Co-ordination Group. Previously, he was chair of the GRDDL Working Group for converting microformats and XML to RDF. He received his Ph.D. in Informatics from the University of Edinburgh, which won a Microsoft “Beyond Search” award. He has presented at industry, government, academic conferences, and previously has been a visiting researcher at Frei Universitat Berlin and Duke University, been an invited expert to the European Commission on digital ecosystems for enterprises, and serves on the programme committee of numerous Semantic Web conferences. With Pat Hayes, he organized the “Identity, Reference, and the Web” workshop that helped lead to the foundations of Linked Data.


   
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