SemTech 2008 Announces SpeciallyDeveloped Industry Tracks Focus Areas and User Groups



SemTech 2008 - the world's largest annual gathering of users, technologists, publishers, developers, specialists, innovators, and entrepreneurs targeting comprehensive, real-world business applications using semantic technologies - today announced new Industry Tracks, Focus Areas, and User Groups that provide in-depth insight on apply semantic technologies across specialty industry markets and interest areas.

To be held 18-22 May at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California, SemTech 2008 focuses on the business of the semantics industry, with an emphasis on innovative, enterprise-wide deployment in key markets and sectors. SemTech 2008 brings together leading semantics industry figures and companies, offering attendees dozens of examples of successful business models and development strategies that demonstrate ways to leverage a new generation of services and opportunities simply by applying a little semantics.

From "Semantic Web in Production" to "Mastering the Semantics of Intelligence Exploitation", more than four dozen sessions at all levels showcase the strategic and commercial capabilities of semantic technologies in action. A broad range of topics in specially-developed tutorials, presentations, and case studies address today's issues in financial services, healthcare, government, application development, and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA).

All aspects of semantics will be explored, from data integration and mashups to Web 3.0, with first-hand "field knowledge" shared by speakers from outstanding organizations such as: Adobe Systems, BBN Technologies; Blue Shield of California; Build Software, LLC; Cleveland Clinic; Cycorp, Inc.; Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI); Digitas/Prodigious; DowJones Client Services; IBM; GE Global Research; Guardian Life; Harland Financial Solutions; JP Morgan Chase Investment Bank; Kent State/Georgetown/World Bank; Mayo Clinic College of Medicine; Mission Critical IT; NATO - Allied Command Transformation; Oracle; Progeny Systems; Radar Networks; Rearden Commerce; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI); Revelytix; Sabre Holdings; Sandpiper Software; Second Integral LLC; Semantic Arts Inc.; Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research; Sun Microsystems; Talis; TopQuadrant; VivoMind Intelligence; WebBackplane; World Wide Web Consortium (W3C); XBRL International Inc.; Yahoo!; and Zepheira.

SemTech 2008 keynote addresses and panel discussions by globally-recognized luminaries include:

* Keynote: "Experience from the Cutting Edge of the Semantic Market" by Nova Spivack, CEO, Radar Networks

* Keynote: "The Next Generation of Semantic Development Tools" by Eric Miller, President, Zepheira

* Keynote Panel: "The Rising Stars of the Semantic Web: Where Are We Today" with David Scott Lewis, Senior Vice President, Startech Global & Zytech Solar; Barney Pell, Founder/CTO, Powerset; Tom Gruber, Founder/CTO, Stealth-Company.com; Dave Errington, CEO, Talis Information Limited; Alex Iskold, Founder/CEO, AdaptiveBlue; and Mark Johnson, Product Manager, Powerset

* Keynote Panel: "Bringing SemTech Back to the Business" with Dave McComb, President, Semantic Arts Inc.; Jonathan Mack, Senior Technical Architect, Guardian Life; John Gilman, Senior Director of Architecture and Engineering, Blue Shield of California; James Hendler, Senior Constellation Professor, Tetherless World Research Constellation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead , World Wide Web Consortium; and Jeff Pollock, Senior Director, Oracle

* Panel: "Will Semantics Give Web Search a Face-lift" with AJ Chen, Technical Architect, Healthline Networks; Fernando Pereira, Research Director, Google Inc.; Peter Mika, Researcher, Yahoo! Research; Jeremie Miller, Search Project Lead, Search Wikia Labs; Christian Hempelmann, CSO, hakia, Inc.; and Mark Fasciano, Co-Founder, General Sentiment

* Semantic Venture Panel: "Investor Opportunities and Pitfalls" with Stephen Hall, Managing Director, Vulcan Capital; Eghosa Omoigui, Investment Director, Intel Capital; and Amanda Reed, Partner, Palomar Ventures

* Sidebar: "Financial Services Industry" with Eric J. Hoffer, Director, Second Integral LLC; Christine Connors, Global Director, Semantic Technology Solutions, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.; JR Gardner, Vice President/Director, Digitas/Prodigious; Shahin Nassiri, Application Architect - Equity Derivatives, Exotics & Hybrids, JP Morgan Chase Investment Bank; YY Lee, COO, First Rain, Inc.; Leo Keller, CEO, NetBreeze; moderated by Christian Halaschek-Wiener

"The boom in the semantics industry is the result of great ideas, creative technologies, visionary entrepreneurs, and the right environment to help them grow. Everything is coming together to push the implementation of this technology forward," said Tony Shaw, President of Semantic Universe and SemTech Program Co-Chair. "As the premier semantic technology conference, SemTech offers an unparallelled opportunity for learning, networking, product exposure and industry-shaping dialogue. This community is laying the foundations for the future of the Web."

In addition to new Industry Tracks and Focus Areas, various user communities will convene at SemTech 2008 including: the TopBraid Suite Open User Group Meeting, the SDForum Semantic Web SIG, and US Federal Government Community of Practice.

Conference sponsors and exhibitors include:

* Platinum -- Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and Metatomix;

* Gold -- Calais powered by Thomson Reuters, Franz Inc, Orbis, Siderean, TopQuadrant, and Zepheira;

* Silver -- Aduna, Cycorp, Dow Jones Client Solutions (NYSE: DJ), Intellidimension, Modus Operandi, NetBreeze, Ontoprise, Ontos AG, Ontotext, Saltlux, Semantic System AG, TextWise, and Thetus;

* Exhibitors -- Expert System, KBSI, Pragati, and Syntactica;

* Supporting -- Object Management Group, Project10X, Semantic Report, Talis, and W3C

Sponsor and exhibitor opportunities are available; contact Steve Bastasini on +1 415 740 5528 or (steve(at)semantic-conference.com) for a prospectus.

To register for the conference or for more information, visit (http://www.semantic-conference.com/)

ABOUT SEMTECH

SemTech is owned and operated by Semantic Universe, a joint venture between Wilshire Conferences (http://www.wilshireconferences.com/) and Semantic Arts (http://www.semanticarts.com). With corporate and conference leadership by some of the most recognized names in the semantic community, their portfolio of conferences and events includes the DAMA International Symposium and WILSHIRE Meta-Data Conference, Data Governance Conference, Designing and Building Business Ontologies, Enterprise Information Management Conference, and Information and Data Quality Conference, as well as the publications Data Strategy Best Practices Council, Data Strategy Journal, and Semantic Report.





SemTech 2008 Announces SpeciallyDeveloped Industry Tracks Focus Areas and User Groups