Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. More details can be found here.
In addition to his knighthood and professorship, his many other achievements and appointments include being Chairman and Co-Founder of the UK Open Data Institute, being adviser to the UK government on Open Data, undertaking a number of reviews for the UK Government and being Principal of Jesus College, Oxford.
Professor Dame Wendy Hall took up office on the Council along with 21 other Fellows on the 30th of November.
The Council is elected by the Royal Society Fellowship on an annual basis. It manages the Society’s business, makes Standing Orders which regulate the Society’s affairs and and acts as trustee of the Society under charity legislation. Council members serve on a voluntary basis.
Other members include Professor Anthony Cheetham, Sir John Beddington, Professor Geoffrey Boulton, Professor Roger Owen and Dame Nancy Rothwell.
Professor Dame Wendy Hall gave a public lecture at the Royal Society entitled “The History of the Web Part I: the First 20 Years.”
Professor Hall gave an insider’s view of the history of the Web and discussed its possible future.
The conference, entitled “Profiting from the New Web,” took place on the 23rd of May at the Royal Society.
Other speakers included Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Charlie Beckett of the London School of Economics, Bill Thompson from the BBC, Ralf Herbrich from Microsoft Research Cambridge, Hector Arthur from News International and Graham Spittle, Vice President of Software Group Europe for IBM UK.
The conference mission was to “Discover new and better ways to do business, run our countries, and lead fulfilling and sustainable lives via the intelligent, innovative and diligent development of the New Web, and to make progress faster than otherwise.”
A video of some of the attendees of the conference talking about the New Web can be found here.
The talk, entitled “Opening the information floodgates: the technologies and challenges of a web of linked data,” was part of the Royal Society’s programme of lectures for the public on the latest developments in science and technology.
The lecture took place on the 16th of November 2010. Professor Shadbolt discussed the opportunities offered by the rapidly increasing amount of information available on the Web and the emergence of the Web of Linked Data. He also discussed the challenges these developments pose, such as maintaining privacy and integrity of data.