Collibra at the European Semantic Technology Conference

Pieter De Leenheer, our Research Director, and myself attended the second edition of the European Semantic Technology Conference, the European equivalent of the Semantic Technology Conference. The conference was held at the magnificent Palais Niederösterriech, in Vienna, Austria. Organized by STI International, the goal of the conference is to bring semantic technology to the spotlight, and show its value in applying it to todays information problems. The conference clearly showed the increased interest in semantic technology, combining tutorials, workshops with case studies and keynotes.

Some highlights:

• A broad overview on the field of semantic technology by Mills Davis from Project10X. He presented two years of Project10X analysis in the field, which is extensively described in their 700+ page research report. He demonstrated very clearly that there is a lot of opportunity in semantic technology, and that we are close to reaching mainstream adoption.
• Pieter De Leenheer gave an invited talk on a case study we performed during Collibra’s incubation period at STARLab. He demonstrated how we applied our approach to business semantics management in the field of human resource management. We received positive feedback, in particular on the business-friendly aspects in our approach. In Collibra, we strongly believe that the semantic alignment between stakeholders with different backgrounds is essential in the adoption and application of semantic technology. [slides?]
• The conference closed with a panel discussion (outline at ZDNet), with an impressive round-up. The discussion was moderated by Paul Miller (Talis), and held by Michael Brodie (Chief Scientist at Verizon), Richard Benjamins (Director of Technological Strategy at Telefónica), Peter F. Brown (Pensive), John Davies (Director of the Next Generation Web group at British Telecom and chairman of the conference), Marta Nagy-Rothengass (Head of Unit DG INFSO/G/5 at the European Commission), and Mark Greaves (Director of Knowledge Systems at Vulcan Capital). A general advice arising from the discussion was the need to convince customers with clear solutions to difficult problems (which is what we as Collibra provide). They also agreed on the opportunities in the field, and the growing adoption in industry.

Next stop: the Future Internet Symposium, where Collibra will present its challenges and opportunities for the Internet of the future.