Kathryn

RAGLD Beta site released

The Beta version of the site for the RAGLD (Rapid Assembly of Geo-centred Linked Data applications) project was recently released. RAGLD is a collaborative project between the Ordnance Survey, the University of Southampton and Seme4. Its main aim is to build tools to enable developers to make greater use of geo-centred linked data.

The RAGLD project started in October 2011 and is due for completion in March 2013. It is part-funded by the Technology Strategy Board‘s “Harnessing Large and Diverse Sources of Data” programme.

The advent of new standards and initiatives for data publication in the context of the World Wide Web (in particular the move to linked data formats) has resulted in the availability of rich sources of information about the changing economic, geographic and socio-cultural landscape of the United Kingdom, and many other countries around the world. In order to exploit the latent potential of these linked data assets, the provision of access to tools and technologies that enable data consumers to easily select, filter, manipulate, visualise, transform and communicate data in ways that are suited to specific decision-making processes is needed.

This project will enable organisations to press maximum value from the UK’s growing portfolio of linked data assets. In particular, a suite of software components that enables diverse organisations to rapidly assemble ‘goal-oriented’ linked data applications and data processing pipelines in order to enhance their awareness and understanding of the UK’s geographic, economic and socio-cultural landscape will be developed.

A specific goal for the project will be to support comparative and multi-perspective region-based analysis of UK linked data assets (this refers to an ability to manipulate data with respect to various geographic region overlays), and as part of this activity the results of recent experimental efforts which seek to extend the kind of geo-centred regional overlays that can be used for both analytic and navigational purposes will be incorporated. The technical outcomes of this project will lead to significant improvements in the ability to exploit large-scale linked data sets for the purposes of strategic decision-making.

A presentation on the project can be found
here.

Nigel Shadbolt talks at the Big Data World Europe conference

The conference was Europe’s first ever Big Data conference. Its aim was to inform senior marketing and IT executives about Big Data.

The conference took place on the 19th and 20th of September in London.

Professor Shadbolt’s talk was entitled “Reconnecting with your customer: how ‘Midata’ will build trust and create business value.”

He discussed the relationship between organisations and consumers, the nature of Midata and the advantages to organisations of getting involved with the Midata scheme.

Other eminent speakers included Katherine Fithen, Chief Privacy Officer at the Coca Cola Company, Michel Floyd, CTO at YouGov, Sarah Phenix, Head of the Group Privacy Programme at Barclays, and Iain Welsh, Head of Information Delivery at RBS.

Open data and charities

A report by Wendy Hall, Nigel Shadbolt, Thanassis Tiropanis, Kieron O’Hara and Tim Davies, describing the ways in which the charitable sector can utilise Open Data to improve intelligence gathering, the targeting of services, knowledge sharing and collaboration with other organisations. The report also discusses technical and organisational challenges in the use of Open Data and makes recommendations for its implementation in the charitable sector.

→ http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/341346/1/Open_Data_and_Charities.pdf

Wendy Hall named one of the most influential women in I.T. in the U.K.

In Computer Weekly’s first ever list of the top 25 most influential women in I.T. in the U.K. Professor Dame Wendy Hall was placed at number 2.

The women in the list were voted for by readers of Computer Weekly and a panel of leaders from across the I.T. industry.

The reason for the publication of the list is to recognise and focus on female role models in the I.T. industry, in order to encourage more women towards careers in the area (currently less than 20% of people employed in the I.T. sector in the U.K. are female, with this figure falling to below 10% for senior/leadership roles).

Dame Wendy said: “I’m delighted and flattered to have been included in such a distinguished list and I applaud Computer Weekly for their efforts to highlight the role of women in I.T. in the U.K. which is far more significant than is often realised. Such publicity will encourage others to consider careers in an industry that is one of the most exciting and important to be in today.”