iks_logosmall.jpgInteractive Knowledge Stack (IKS), the open source endeavor to increase speed of adoption for semantic web technologies, is planning its largest workshop to date. Over 100 participants are expected in Paris July 5-6 for the free event.

The Semantic Web

The IKS project is focused on making semantic technology more easily accessible to content and knowledge management platforms across Europe and beyond. Many CMS platforms are based on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, php) stacks that make it difficult to incorporate semantic technologies such as RDF and OWL. To date, IKS has made open source contributions including:

  • Semantic enhancement engines that can be integrated into your CMS via RESTful APIs
  • An "entity hub," i.e. a caching solution that lets you combine local and web resources
  • A semantic editing support that lets you make use of RDFa annotations in HTML 5
  • In the pipeline is a rules engine, pret-a-porter data models and an ontology generator.

IKS is funded in part by a €6.58m grant from the European Union. It strives to develop an open flexible technology framework that allows these companies to enable their products to deliver semantic-web-enabled, intelligent content.

The July workshop will focus on using IKS semantic technology to manage and integrate content from disparate sources. Keynote speakers will include analysts from Alta Plana and Outsell’s Gilbane services. The workshop will kick off with an introduction and demos to Apache Stanbol, Apache’s project for semantic content management, and Vienna IKS Editables (VIE). These are two of the core technologies for IKS and can be used with CMS platforms such as Drupal, Alfresco, WordPress and Nuxeo to provide better contextual linking of content. Workshop attendees can attend sessions on implementing IKS technologies in any CMS.

The workshop's second day will feature a “hackathon” focused on developers that want to work with core IKS development team members in addition to sessions. Participants will also have the opportunity to compete to win development funding for the next “killer semantic web application.” The ideas will be presented in the afternoon session after day two. The winning idea, chosen by the conference and the IKS advisory board, will be funded by the project. Participants can bring their ideas with them and present onstage and the solution must integrate quickly -- within minutes -- to any type of content management system.

IKS and Apache Stanbol are continuing to move the semantic technology forward. If you are near Paris, the workshop is certainly worth the time investment.