Semantic Conference Design Challenge

Design Challenge Results!

The design challenge received a number of excellent submissions, which were particularly impressive given the very short timescale (27 hours) available to prepare entries. Submissions were assessed blind according to the criteria below, by a panel consisting of Dan Brickley, Anthony Jameson, and York Sure. The winner of the design challenge and the iPod Nano was Gunnar Grimnes of DFKI, for the Semantic Conference Program (PDF, 2.3MB). Many thanks are due to all those who submitted entries, and to the judges for giving up their lunch break to assess the submissions.

Winner: Semantic Conference Program, by Gunnar Grimnes (PDF, 2.3MB)

Original Design Challenge Brief

Write a short outline (maximum 1 side of A4) of a Semantic Web application or service that could feasibly be implemented to enhance the conference experience for delegates. The authors of the most highly rated submission will win an iPod Nano.

Requirements

Your application or service should:

use the existing RDF/XML descriptions of the conference, or other conference related Semantic Web data that could feasibly be produced (this might include information about people, presence, photos, interests, travel details, research impact, whatever...).
provide functionality to conference delegates that is not already available and directly enhances the conference experience.
have a funky name.

Your submission should clearly outline:

the functionality provided by the application or service
the benefit to conference delegates of your application or service
how you would implement the application or service technically

Submission Instructions

Submissions can be up to 1 side of A4 in length (max 600 words), and should be emailed as plain text, RTF, or PDF to tom.heath [at] gmail.com by midday on Wednesday 14th June. Submissions from groups of up to 4 people are welcomed.

Assessment Criteria

Submisssions will be assessed by a panel of judges according to the following criteria:

benefit to delegates: the potential benefit or value of the application/service to delegates at a conference.
technical merit: the technical feasibility of implementing the system as described in the submission, and the degree to which the proposal embodies the Semantic Web vision.

In the event of a tie for first place, the tied application or service with the funkiest name will be awarded the prize.

Applications Ideas

The following application ideas are provided as examples, but would need to be developed further to meet the submission criteria!!

AvoidTheBoss! is an RDF-based notification tool that tells you when a particular person you want to avoid, or any of his/her 'sidekicks' or 'acolytes' (according to some co-publication, co-residence or co-interest metric) is in your vicinity, tapping into presence/location information derived from the next-generation MSG chat service. It could also be turned into a positive alert rather than a negative one!
Electronic Goodie Bag provides each delegate with an anonymous RFID tag they can take to sessions they attend. The presence of a tag at a session is recorded by scanners in the conference venue, which then gather URIs of artefacts from the attended sessions into an electronic goodie bag. Delegates can then redeem their tag to download the artefacts they have collected in their goodie bag.