News Story

Audience demands Magpie replay at International Semantic Web Conference

John Domingue, Monday 3 Nov 2003

Semantic Web and Semantic Web Services are clearly two very hot topic areas. The very successful International Semantic Web Conference – ISWC 2003, which was held this month in Sanibel Island, Florida, saw the number of participants reaching 450 people, double the number of the previous year. Clearly these folks longed for listening to Jim Hendler and Tim Berners-Lee. Dieter Fensel, the conference chair, also promoted the topic areas with a The-Matrix-based philosophical argumentation. This year’s conference launched OWL, the Web Ontology Language for the Semantic Web with an excellent tutorial from its authors; and saw massive support for Semantic Web Services from industry, expressed in Mike Brodie’s exciting talk. KMi was well represented in the conference by Prof. Enrico Motta, Dr. John Domingue, Liliana Cabral and Dr. Martin Dzbor. Both Enrico Motta and John Domingue presented papers in the main conference, one on the KMi platform for Semantic Web Services (IRS) and the other on the Magpie Semantic Web Browser. In particular, Magpie was a major highlight of the conference, and a second presentation was needed after an enthusiastic audience demanded a replay when some of them missed the first presentation due to a last-minute rearrangement. KMi is at the forefront of key initiatives on Semantic Web Services by being a partner of the EU-funded DIP project – Data, Information and Process Integration with Semantic Web Services – one of the leading projects in the area, which will start in January, 2004. In addition, Enrico Motta is a member of the Architectural Committee of the joint US-EU Semantic Web Services Initiative (SWSI).