- From: Janet Daly <janet@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 00:00:29 -0700
- To: w3c-news <w3c-news@w3.org>
Today, in Rome, W3C launches its European Commission-sponsored "Semantic
Tour," which brings presentations and demonstrations of Semantic Web
technologies, given by W3C Members and Technical staff to five European
locations.
Learn more about the Semantic Tour, and about the Semantic Web, by
contacting Janet Daly, Head of Communications, at +1 617 253 5884,
<janet@w3.org>, or the appropriate W3C representative for your region,
as indicated in the press release.
==============================================================
World Wide Web Consortium Launches W3C European Semantic Tour
European Commission sponsors Semantic Web infrastructure presentations
from W3C Members and Team in Rome, London, Munich, Athens and Brussels
Web resources
This Press Release:
http://www.w3.org/2003/06/semantictour-pressrelease
(available in Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian and Japanese)
Schedule for Semantic Tour, including Agendas for individual events:
http://www.w3.org/2003/03/semantic-tour.html
W3C's Semantic Web Activity Homepage:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
W3C's Semantic Web Activity Statement:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Activity
http://www.w3.org/ -- 10 June 2003 -- The World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) launches its Semantic Tour today, bringing presentations and
demonstrations of Semantic Web technologies to public audiences across
Europe. The W3C Semantic Tour consists of a series of five one-day
events beginning today in Rome, Italy, and ending on 24 June 2003 in
Brussels, Belgium. Representatives of W3C Member organizations and the
W3C Team explain how Semantic Web technologies help to create richer,
more usable data on the existing Web. The use of these technical
standards enables more effective discovery, automation, integration, and
reuse of data across applications.
The Semantic Web Extends the Current Web
For the Web to reach its full potential, it must evolve into a Semantic
Web, providing a universally accessible platform that allows data to be
shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. The
Semantic Web, first a vision expressed by Tim Berners-Lee at the Web's
inception, is now best known as an initiative of the World Wide Web
Consortium. Berners-Lee wrote an early Roadmap for the Semantic Web in
1998, and it continues to be a good place to learn the architecture on
which the W3C Semantic Web Activity is based.
The W3C Semantic Web Activity, launched in 2001, brings together experts
and leaders in areas such as metadata, ontologies, and the Web, and
encourages both the design of specifications and the open, collaborative
development of technology.
The Semantic Web is an extension of the current Web that will allow you
to find, share, and combine information more easily. It is designed to
be a universal medium for the exchange of data, and allows vocabulary
semantics to be defined and reused by any interested person or user
community, making it cost-effective for people to record their
knowledge, and share with others.
To facilitate these goals, a set of interoperable specifications are
under development. W3C's Semantic Web work starts with a model called
the Resource Description Framework (RDF), which consists of the basic
Model and Syntax for descriptions and a way to assemble descriptive
vocabularies, called RDF Schema. The next layer above, OWL - the Web
Ontology Language, provides a way to decribe relationships between
different vocabularies. These languages all build on the foundation of
URIs, XML, and XML namespaces.
W3C Semantic Events Scheduled for Five Regions
The events themselves have been organized by ERCIM, the European Host of
W3C, and five of the European W3C Offices (Benelux, Germany and Austria,
Greece, Italy, and United Kingdom and Ireland).
The timetable and locations of the events are as follows:
* 10 June: Rome, Italy, Pontificia Università Gregoriana
(announcement also available on Office site in Italian)
* 12 June: London, UK, Regent's Park (announcement also available
on Office site in English)
* 17 June: Munich, Germany, Astron Hotel Muenchen Deutscher
(announcement also available on the Office site in German)
* 19 June: Athens, Greece, Hotel Divani Caravel (announcement also
available on the Office site in Greek and English)
* 24 June: Brussels, Belgium, Diamant Building Congress Centre
Each event consists of a series of talks about W3C Semantic Web work,
applications and test cases. These presentations are done by one to two
W3C Team members and invited speakers representing the local community.
All events are free and open to the public, but attendees must register.
Please contact the local organizers for details.
European Commission funding encourages W3C outreach via its Regional Offices
Last year's W3C Interop Tour focused on the range of W3C technologies,
and showing how they facilitate interoperability on the World Wide Web.
This June's W3C Semantic Tour focuses on Semantic Web technologies, an
area of increasing interest within the Web community. Both these tours
exist thanks to funding from the European Commission in the form of the
QUESTION-HOW project.
The tour benefits from another IST funded project - the W3C's Semantic
Web Advanced Development work in Europe, also called the SWAD-Europe
project. Practical demonstrations show the Semantic Web in action,
addressing problems in areas such as: tracking documents and
translations, sitemaps, news channel syndication, classification, and
annotations.
Contact Americas, Australia --
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94
Contact Asia --
Saeko Takeuchi <saeko@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170
About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]
The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing
common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run
by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the USA, the
European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM)
headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided
by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World
Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample
applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, over 410
organizations are Members of the Consortium. For more information see
http://www.w3.org/
Received on Tuesday, 10 June 2003 03:00:29 UTC