Stefan Decker

Message in a Bottle or How can the Semantic Web Community be more convincing?

Enormous resources are poured into projects like the Large Hadron Collider, the Hubble space telescope, or the Iter fusion reactor. Computer science resources pale in comparison – the European Semantic Web effort is tiny compared to those projects. Why is this the case? Does the Semantic Web (or computer science in general) promise less impact or relevance than those Physics projects? In my talk I will argue that the Physicists are much better in formulating an engaging mission and message. Especially the Semantic Web community has not been very good in coming up with a convincing mission directed to the public. We need to and we can do better.
I will formulate requirements and a starting point for such a message and investigate ongoing seemingly unrelated research areas and trends on the Semantic Web like Semantic Sensor Networks, Social Semantic Desktop and Semantic Publishing and how they contributes to a better conveyable mission.

Biography

Prof. Stefan Decker is a professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute, an institute with more than 130 people working on the Semantic Web. Previously he worked at ISI, University of Southern California (2 years, Research Assistant Professor and Computer Scientist), Stanford University, Computer Science Department (Database Group) (3 Years, PostDoc and Research Associate), and Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe (4 years, PhD Student and Junior Researcher).
He is one of the most widely cited Semantic Web scientists, and his current research interests include semantics in collaborative systems, Web 2.0, and distributed systems.

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