Semantic Web for the Working Enterprise

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

08:30 AM – 09:45 AM

Level:	Business / Non-Technical
Location:	Grand A

The Semantic Web standards of the W3C were designed with global scale in mind, addressing the issue of how information can be shared on the World Wide Web. Enterprise applications of Semantic Web technology have traditionally downplayed the global nature of the Semantic Web, using the technology as a way to respond to increasing need for flexibility in their data management. We see increasing uptake in a wide variety of industries, including energy, health care, publishing and security, as well as some of the early adopters, government and life sciences.

But enterprises are finding that they are more like the Web than meets the eye. More and more, enterprises internally look like the Web, made up of multiple components with varied histories who have to share information in order to survive. Semantic Web solutions aren’t just a better way to solve certain information management problems: a Semantic Web approach is an essential part of a successful enterprise data strategy.

The drive pushes outside the enterprise. More industries are recognizing the value of ‘pre-competitive’ collaboration, efforts in which competing companies sit down at the same table, working together, to increase the common level of knowledge in an industry. This isn’t a pipe-dream of a future world-it is a reality happening today. And the Semantic Web is an integral part of it, smoothly connecting intranet with internet in a global knowledge economy.

Dean Allemang, Chief Scientist at TopQuadrant Inc. is a frequent speaker at semantic technology conferences. He brings to this talk over 10 years experience working with customers on implementing solutions based on ontologies, with the last 5 years of his work focused on using the Semantic Web Standards. He developed the successful TopMIND Semantic Web training course, now in its fifth year with over 500 alumni. Along with his co-author Jim Hendler, Dean has just published Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist (Morgan-Kaufmann, 2008), a practitioner’s guide to the Semantic Web.

James Hendler is the Tetherless World Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science, and the Assistant Dean for Information Technology, at Rensselaer. Hendler has authored about 200 technical papers in the areas of Semantic Web, artificial intelligence, agent-based computing and high performance processing. One of the inventors of the “Semantic Web,” Hendler was the recipient of a 1995 Fulbright Foundation Fellowship, is a member of the US Air Force Science Advisory Board, and is a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the British Computer Society and the IEEE. He is also the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 2002. He is the Editor-in-Chief emeritus of IEEE Intelligent Systems and is the first computer scientist to serve on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science.