Dear Knowledge Web Industry Board member, Please find inline the text version of the newsletter of the Knowledge Web Industry Area.
As a member of our Industry Board, we are glad to send you this newsletter every 2 months and welcome your comments and input. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please send a mail indicating this to nixon@inf.fu-berlin.de Best Regards,
Lyndon Nixon
Industry Area Co-Manager
Knowledge Web NoE
http://knowledgeweb.semanticweb.org/o2i

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KNOWLEDGE WEB INDUSTRY AREA NEWSLETTER
Issue 07/3 July-August 2007

EDITORIAL


Sustaining Results: Continuing Industry-Research Co-operation
Author: Lyndon Nixon, FU Berlin

One of the achievements of KnowledgeWeb has been to promote the co-operation between Industry Board members and leading Semantic Web researchers.
The recently released deliverable D1.1.4v3 provides details of 6 Industry-Research co-operations that have been followed through within the network. These co-operations serve as indicators of the potential of semantic technologies for business cases, while also warning of the challenges still faced: research not yet fully industry mature, industry conviction often lacking.
As noted in the deliverable, these efforts are only the start. By involving researchers into business cases early in their research work, we have made them aware of industry requirements and can hope for research results which are more suited for enterprise application. By involving industry earlier in the co-operations, we have raised awareness of the potential of the technology and can hope for stronger commitment in the future.
Events organised parallel to this effort such as the ESTC (see Spotlight below) reflect the growing interest among European industry in semantic technlogies. The co-operations in Knowledge Web draw to a close, but the effort to tranfer semantic technology to industry is truly just beginning.
The deliverable D1.1.4v3 can be downloaded from the KnowledgeWeb portal (knowledgeweb.semanticweb.org). Click on Industrial Deliverables in the menu on the left hand side and scroll down to D1.1.4v3.

SPOTLIGHT
Report from ESTC 2007 Authors: Vincent Louis, France Telecom
The 1st European Conference on Semantic Technologies (ESTC2007) took place May 31st - June 1st in Vienna. With more than 200 attendees, this first European edition can be considered as a real success, similar to the first edition of its American counterpart (SemTech 2005) 2 years ago.
First of all, the repartition of the participants confirmed the definitely industrial orientation of this event: 75% industry / 5% government & administrations / 20% academia.
The attendees were really impressed by the excellence and the quality of the 7 invited speakers. The broad vision and the variety of semantics-related topics they embraced - ranging from semantic aggregation and integration of data and services to the convergence between Semantic Web and Web 2.0, including the ongoing scientific research perspectives - were especially appreciated.
The very original Business Idea Contest, which rewarded the 3 best ideas of commercializing products based on semantic technologies, also showed the creativity and dynamicity of the semantic web community in Europe.
Finally, for those who were not yet convinced by the reality and the necessity of semantic technologies, the presentations given during the main and workshop tracks of the conference demonstrated more than 50 industrial use cases, commercial products and R&D projects, all using or promoting semantic technologies, in various business sectors (telecommunications, automotive, e-business, aerospace, ...).
The second edition next year promises to be even more exciting.
CALL FOR PAPERS
First Industrial Results of Semantic Technologies (FIRST) workshop
located at the International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2007)
November 11, 2007 Busan, South Korea
This Knowledge Web-supported workshop aims to gather reports from industry of first applications of semantic technologies in the enterprise.
It gives business people the possibility to present their experiences to an audience of Semantic Web researchers and discuss industry requirements with those who will be generating future Semantic Web research results.
It is an unique opportunity for industry to influence the future direction of semantic technologies and address gaps in industrial relevance of research results.
Be a part of this workshop, either as an attendee or a presenter!
ISWC 2007 registration is now open at http://iswc2007.semanticweb.org/registration/registration.asp FIRST workshop website is at http://www.disa.unitn.it/net-economy/first/index.html Submissions open until AUGUST 23! Knowledge Web Industry Board members have the opportunity to apply for support to attend this workshop as a presenter, please submit your paper and send a request to Lyndon Nixon nixon@inf.fu-berlin.de regarding Knowledge Web support.