Louise Jack has asked, “If so many people’s jobs are touched by the Internet and digital technology, then how come so few of us have even a basic understanding of how things work? This is the fundamental question behind a new course in the U.K. called Decoded, which promises to teach people how to code in one day.”

Steve Henry, one of the creators of the class stated, “The Internet is beyond doubt the prime medium for communications and commerce. Unlike TV, it’s a two-way tool. And yet how many people know how it works? Probably less than 3%.” Read more

Semantic Tech & Business Conference Returns to San Francisco

Semantic Tech & Business Conference returns to San Francisco in June! Join us from June 3-7 for complete coverage of Big Data, Linked Data, Extreme Information Management, and Semantic Web. From breakthrough approaches to solving business problems to the big data implications of fast–evolving technologies, SemTechBiz provides you with an unparalleled interactive experience and delivers tangible business value. We're offering a special early rate when you register by February 17. Sign up now!

“How would you explain RDF to my grandmother?  I still don’t get it…” a student recently asked of David Wood, CTO of 3Roundstones. Wood was speaking to a class called “Linked Data Ventures” and was made up of students from the MIT Computer Science Department and the Sloan School of Business. He responded by creating a slide deck and subsequent video explaining the Resource Description Framework using the classic Dr. Seuss style of rhyming couplets and the characters Thing 1 and Thing 2.

I hope this student’s grandmother found this as enjoyable as I did. (Video after the jump). Read more

Due out next month from Springer Publishing is Linking Government Data, a book that highlights some of the leading-edge applications of Linked Data to problems of government operations and transparency. David Wood, CTO of 3RoundStones and co-chair of the W3C RDF Working Group, writes and edits the volume, which includes contributions from others exploring the intersection of government and the Semantic Web.

“If you look at the LOD cloud, you see that a very large percentage of data comes from government sources,” Wood says. Historically, it’s made up about one-quarter to one-third of it, and it’s a very international set of data. The new book, with contributions from authors in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, the U.S. and the U.K., among others, aims at providing visibility into what’s going on around all that data, such as work underway between academia and governments that could lead to more mainstream deployments in the sector in coming years.

Read more

On Friday, September 9, a group of Semantic thought leaders from around the globe met with their host and colleague, Paul Miller, for the latest installment of the Semantic Link, a monthly podcast covering the world of Semantic Technologies. This episode includes a discussion about the latest document around the RDF 1.1 standard (a Working Draft). The Semantic Link panel was joined by special guest, David Wood, Co-Chair of the RDF Working Group at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

David Wood, 3 Roundstones

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Summer can be a great time to learn something new, and SemanticWeb.com is always on the lookout for new ways of explaining the terms, techniques, standards, and technologies involved in the world of Semantic Web. We were thrilled, then, to see this much-needed executive briefing on Linked Data from our colleagues at 3 Round Stones:

Please share this video with anyone you think would benefit, leave a comment below, and check out some of these other resources:

• Webcasts on core semantic topics
• “Introduction To” articles
• Podcasts
• Elevator Pitches
• Our community-run Q&A platform – ask a Semantic Web expert!

 

David Wood of Talis, Inc., submitted this elevator pitch. I particularly like how he used an elevator both as setting and example (of a closed system).

We are collecting these from our readers in an attempt to answer the question “What is the Semantic Web?” If you think you have a pitch in you, check out the original challenge.

Thanks David!

Date: September 15, 2010, 11:00AM (1 hour)
Register: View the recorded webcast
Q&A: Q & A – Callimachus: Semantic Web Apps Made Easy

RDFa makes it easy for Web publishers to expose data on the Web, but RDFa can also make it easy to develop Web data applications. Watch how easy it is to replace complex data schemas and their SQL queries with simple RDFa attributes in your HTML markup! In this webcast, James Leigh, a lead developer (with David Wood) on the Callimachus Project, will show us how a Web developer can create semantically-enabled Web applications with a minimal knowledge of the internals of the Semantic Web and SQL. For further details, see Callimachus Project at http://www.callimachusproject.org. SUPPORTING MATERIAL This webcast walks you through some of the sample applications with Callimachus. To find out more about these sample applications and to download them, visit: http://code.google.com/p/callimachus/wiki/SampleApplicationInstructions Callimachus uses the Turtle syntax for its configuration files. The Turtle syntax is explained here:  http://www.w3.org/TeamSubmission/turtle/ RDFa is used in the template language of Callimachus. An introduction to RDFa (the data format) can be found here: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-rdfa-primer/ During this webcast some browser extensions are used, they can be downloaded here: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mgekankhbggjkjpcbhacjgflbacnpljm?hl=en https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/187590/

Presenters:

James Leigh
Independent Software Consultant
James Leigh is an independent Software Consultant based in Toronto. James is a co-creator of Callimachus and is involved in other public semantic Web projects, such as the PURL server and Sesame store. James has been building web applications for ten years with emphasis on performance and technology integration. His experience modelling business problems and concepts in software has enabled his clients to rapidly move from concepts to prototypes to production systems.

Date: April 21, 2010, 11:00AM (1 hour)
Register: View the archived webcast
Q&A: Q&A Session for “Introduction to Linked Data” webcast
Attachment: LED-slides.pdf (1.06 MB)

Presenters:

David Wood
Zepheira

David Wood is a partner with Zepheira and software engineer/entrepreneur specializing in disruptive technologies. He is a co-founder of the Kowari, Mulgara and PURLZ Open Source Software projects. Dr. Wood has been involved with Semantic Web research and standards efforts since 1999.

Semantic Web Technology Platform Enables Data Collaboration via the Web

San Jose, CA – June 16, 2009 – Zepheira™, a leading global provider of semantic web technology services for accelerating the integration and understanding of complex information, today announced the availability of Freemix™ [http://freemix.it] for invitational beta. Freemix is a new and innovative platform that allows users to slice, show and share data via the Web. The announcement was made at the Semantic Technology 2009 Conference [http://www.semantic-conference.com], the industry’s largest conference on semantic technologies.

Freemix [http://www.freemix.it] is a free social networking site for wrapping, exposing and sharing data. The invitational beta of Freemix allows you to rapidly upload data, visualize and share it on the Web, providing quantum leaps in speed, efficiencies and cost reduction in comparison to traditional data management strategies. Over the past year, there has been increasing attention to the critical need for easy ways to quickly wrap and expose both local content and an increasing amount of open data. The ability to rapidly add, visualize and share data is driving the next generation of successful organizations delivering products and services online.

Freemix is a platform to assist people in sharing information which is the foundation of online communities. Provided on demand, as a software-as-a-service offering, Freemix provides easy access to a suite of Web 3.0 tools and a highly-customizable user interface for improved visualization and analysis.

David Wood [http://zepheira.com/team/dave/], Partner and co-founder of Zepheira [http://zepheira.com], stated “this new service lowers the barriers for sharing data on the Web and will enable the widespread use of semantic web technologies. With Freemix, you can now you can point at data, perform powerful transformations, create metadata and in minutes create a compelling Web-based user interface.” An entrepreneur and multidisciplinary engineer, Dr. Wood has been involved with the development of Semantic Web standards, tools, products and services since 1999.

Semantic Web technologies were designed from the ground up for disparate information integration. Disparate data and its impact on data quality and consistency remain one of the most difficult challenges facing large enterprises today. Yet, there has been relatively little use of Semantic Web technologies in these organizations.

The adoption of new technology by large enterprises has always been challenging. Recently, SOA and Web service technologies have had some success in making inroads to large enterprises, mainly due to their seemingly direct addressing of business process automation problems, which business executives could readily appreciate. In contrast, the Semantic Web has been nicknamed the "Pedantic Web" due to its frequently esoteric explanations from academics, hindering its adoption.

What is required is the ability to teach business leaders the value of the technology in terms that they can understand. Our panel includes technical leaders that have taken on this challenge and have succeeded in getting these somewhat trailing edge enterprises to embrace the technology. They now wish to share that experience. Topics covered in the panel include:

• What advantages of using Semantic Technologies over existing data integration tools such as ETL and EAI that really resonated with business leaders?
• What objections to the technology has the panel experienced?
• How did the panel address these objections?
• How did members of the panel first introduce the technology?
• How did members of the panel socialize the use of ontologies without it turning into and explanation of the "Pedantic Web"?
• How did the panel address how Semantic Technologies fit in to the SOA strategies for the enterprise?

Note: This podcast is "Premium content", and requires Semantic Universe registration, which is free.

Attachment: Panel – How to Internally Market Semantic Web in Large Enterprises.MP3 (61.18 MB)

Presenters:

Matt Fisher
Progeny Systems

Matt Fisher is a Principal Systems Engineer at Progeny Systems who enjoys discussing the Semantic Web to the point that his wife hopes he gets a new hobby. 

John Gilman
Blue Shield of California

Dir. Architecture and Engineering

David Wood
Zepheira

David Wood is a partner with Zepheira and software engineer/entrepreneur specializing in disruptive technologies. He is a co-founder of the Kowari, Mulgara and PURLZ Open Source Software projects. Dr. Wood has been involved with Semantic Web research and standards efforts since 1999.

Rachel Lovinger
Razorfish