A half day workshop demystifying the Semantic Web and showing why you should be considering it in your business.

Overview

Many businesses have heard about the Semantic Web but may be wondering what it means for their business. Companies rich in silos of data may be considering the use of the Semantic Web and implementing associated technologies to integrate different data stores.

The aim of this workshop is to demystify the Semantic Web, give you an introduction to it and its associated new technologies. During this workshop you will learn how to determine whether the Semantic Web is relevant for your business and your target market. In this workshop you’ll discover:

• What the Semantic Web is.
• Why it is important to know about it and the competitve advantage it can give to your business. The need to be progressive and move on with the new technology as it emerges.
• A Web of Data versus a Web of Documents – the difference.
• An introduction to Semantic Web technologies.
• What Linked Data is.

Prior to the programme you will be required to complete a short online survey about your knowledge of the semantic web the results of which will be confidential but used in the workshop to enhance and customise the content for you as an attendee.

Who Should Attend?

The workshop is for business leaders, decision makers, entrepreneurs, marketing, developers, businesses marketing to customers and consumers in Ireland and across the globe.

What is the Semantic Web?

The Internet is currently 5,000 days old. We have seen it evolve from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Behind the scenes the Web is always continually evolving and Web 3.0 (or the Semantic Web) is currently simmering just below the surface. The Semantic Web is a Web in which the meaning or semantics of both information and services on the web is formally defined, exposing the information also to machines. For example today when you search for the word “Bank” the computer does not know whether you are referring to the bank of a river or a bank where money is kept.

That is because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The Semantic Web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, combining, and acting upon information on the Web. Our current Web concentrates mainly on the interchange of documents whereas a Semantic Web is about common formats for the integration and combination of data drawn from diverse sources. There is a movement from the “document Web” to the “data Web”.

The Web was designed as an information space, with the goal that it should not only be useful for human-human communication, but also for machines to be able to participate and help. Therefore one of the major obstacles to this possibility has been the very fact that most information on the Web is designed for human consumption.

The Semantic Web approach instead develops languages for expressing information in a machine processable form.

Put simply the Web we use today is one focused on documents whereas the Semantic Web is a Web of data resources. The Semantic Web is not a new Web but an extension and enhanced version of the Web we currently use. We all use lots of data daily. However our data is not part of the Web as we don’t have a Web of data as yet. Especially because data is controlled by applications, and each application keeps it to itself.

Your Trainer

This course is run in partnership with SocialBits and is delivered by Knud Moeller from DERI (Digital Enterprise Research Institute). View Knud’s full profile below.

Please contact Irene with any questions.

• Mr Knud Moeller (Web & Semantic Web Researcher) DERI

  Knud Moeller is a Web and Semantic Web researcher at DERI (Digital Enterprise Research Institute), where he spent several years working on topics such as collaborative technologies, data lifecycles and networked knowledge. He received a PhD from the National University of Ireland, Galway on the topic of “Lifecycle Support for Data on the Semantic Web”, and also holds an MA in linguistics from the University of Cologne, Germany, and a BA from the University of Bergen, Norway. Knud has published and continues to publish his research in a range of papers, and has applied it in a range of European projects, such as Nepomuk and FAST.