Semantic Web is an inherently multi-disciplinary field. The Artificial Intelligence community has contributed much in the way of formal logic and knowledge representation. Similarly, the applied computer science community, along with industry and government agencies, have contributed with application development and testing. With an ever-growing dependence on the web, and the continuously increasing importance of large-scale data sharing, integration, and reuse, natural science researchers, geoscience, biology, library science, health care, the humanities, just to name a few, have also taken an increasing interest in the Semantic Web. Large-scale industrial applications are under way or already deployed.
Yet, the division between computer science, natural science, and academia/government/industry, has a downside. It limits the formation of a coherent national agenda for exploring emerging trends in Semantic Technologies. What are needed are community consolidation and the building of a U.S.-based community research network.
The goal of the 1st U.S. Semantic Technologies Symposium is to bring together the U.S. Semantic Web community and begin forming such a research network. We aim to achieve this by supporting communication across disciplinary, organizational, and geographical boundaries. The Symposium will provide a forum by which participants can share information and ideas, coordinate ongoing or planned research activities, foster synthesis and new collaborations, develop community standards, and advance their science and education through communication and the sharing of ideas.
To this end, the Symposium will be an informal gathering with plenty of time for discussion and breakout sessions. We encourage anyone with an interest in the Semantic Web, regardless of field, to attend.
Discussions are held in the public Gitter channel which you can join here.