Presentation Title: How to Argue for Semantics

Presentation slides (.pdf)

Abstract: Many people who could benefit from the techniques used by the semantic web community remain unaware of the advantages conveyed by graphs, URIs and ontologies.  In this talk I'll explore perceptions of the semantic web, the kinds of problems people frequently encounter that can be solved with these techniques, and how to explain semantic technology to the uninitiated.

Biography:
Toby Segaran is a software developer and the author of the acclaimed O'Reilly title, Programming Collective Intelligence, and two new books Programming the Semantic Web and Beautiful Data. Formerly the Director of Software Development at Genstruct, Toby is now a Data Magnate at Metaweb technologies where he develops techniques to retrieve, parse and reconcile large public datasets. He loves applying data-mining algorithms to everything ranging from pharmaceutical trials to social networks and online dating.