NeOn Presence at the SSSW 2009

From NeOn Project

Forty nine students from sixteen countries attended the seventh edition of the Summer School on Ontological Engineering and the Semantic Web (SSSW 2009), which took place in Cercedilla, Spain on 5-11 July. The event, founded and directed by Prof Enrico Motta, is the latest in the successful and groundbreaking series of SSSW summer schools, which started back in 2003, as part of the activities of the OntoWeb Network Consortium. Presented by leading researchers in the field, the Summer School on Ontological Engineering and the Semantic Web represents an opportunity for postgraduate students to equip themselves with the range of theoretical, practical, and collaboration skills necessary for full engagement with the challenges involved in developing Ontologies and Semantic Web applications.

The NeOn project is now the main sponsor of the school, with support coming also from the X-Media project, as well as a number of other organizations, including Yahoo!, iSOCO, and Talis. In particular several key members of the NeOn project tutored at the SSSW 2009 event, including Mathieu d'Aquin, Jerome Euzenat, Aldo Gangemi, Asun Gomez-Perez, Enrico Motta, and Valentina Presutti. As a result, over the course of the week, the students became acquainted with several NeOn technologies, including the NeOn Toolkit, Ontology Design Patterns, the NeOn Methodology, Watson, Cupboard, and the Alignment Server.

SSSW 2009 experienced a record number of applications, which testifies both to the increasing interest in semantic technologies, and also to the enduring significance of the school, an event that over the years has become a role model for several other initiatives.

Story By: Enrico Motta