Throughout this year, GCA found that knowledge technologies were taking center stage in its XML conferences (Europe and US) and the Extreme Markup Conference (Montreal).  In light of the strong interest in knowledge technologies, GCA offered a new conference, Knowledge Technologies 2001, (or KT2001).  This conference was a natural consequence of the rapidly growing interest in technologies that will provide solutions for the knowledge management community and make the Semantic Web a reality.

Opening Keynotes

KT2001 opened and closed with a truly outstanding set of keynote speakers.  Douglas B. Lenat, President/CEO, Cycorp, Inc. provided the opening keynote.  Doug is one of the world's leading computer scientists, and is both the founder of the CYC® project and the president of Cycorp. He has been a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University and Stanford University. He is a prolific author, with a strong focus on knowledge representation and artificial intelligence.  Doug discussed his vision for knowledge technology, and in particular the status of natural language representation (NLR), codifying of knowledge and the promise that holds for making the dream of AI systems come true.  

Dr. Nic Fulton is the Chief Technology Strategist for Reuterspace, a division of Reuters focusing on B2B and B2C initiatives provided the second keynote presentation.  Nic focused on the "Industrialization of Knowledge."  In his presentation Fulton began by saying the Reuters has been doing knowledge management since 1851!  He then examined the knowledge revolution and where it has taken us, why standards are important, and what we might expect in the future.  Fulton believes that industrialization is happening to knowledge in business.  He claims the the biggest road block today is a semantic one.  

Scott Cooper, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Knowledge Management Business Unit , Lotus Development Corporation rounded out the opening keynote speakers.  Scott represented the business of knowledge from the perspective of industry heavy-weights Lotus and IBM.  Scott discussed trends in knowledge management and how Lotus technology is providing solutions for users today.  Scott is responsible for the development of Lotus' suite of KM products including the Lotus Knowledge Discovery System, a suite of technologies designed to allow organizations to discover the contextual relationships between people and information. He also manages the Document Management, Workflow, Search, and SmartSuite teams.

Conference Highlights

While most of the GCA conferences in recent years have focused on markup or more specifically XML and related standards, KT2001 focused on the technologies that enable knowledge.   KT2001 was designed to provide a bridge between knowledge communities that currently have no forum for interaction.  The meeting of the minds that occurred at KT was nothing short of remarkable.  The conference was small and there were plenty of opportunities to make new acquaintances and discuss knowledge from new and varied perspectives. To quote Edd Dumbill, editor of XML.com, "At conferences such as these, it's often who you sit next to at lunch that leads to some of the most interesting conversations and insights into the work of various developers and organizations." He continued, " Anyone who thinks that the rages of XML-DEV can't be reproduced in the flesh should have been there."  Edd provided us with the closing keynote presentation on the Semantic Web and a wrap-up of the conference.

KT2001 consisted of 3 concurrent tracks;  Management, Implementers, and Technical.   Emphasis was placed on the Business of Knowledge, Managers Technology Overviews, Ontologies and Taxonomies, Topic Maps, Tools and Applications, Knowledge Visualization, Knowledge Acqusition, Asset Management, Core Standards, and Case Studies.

In the closing plenary, representatives from each knowledge community explained the particular technology concerns for their community and answered audience questions.  Dan Connolly (XML Lead from W3C) represented the Web community.  Eric Miller, the new lead for the W3C Semantic Web activity, represented the knowledge organization community.  Dr Paul Williamson, represented the knowledge management community.  Steven R. Newcomb represented the knowledge markup community. Daniel Rivers-Moore represented the KnoW (Knowledge on the Web Community).

Attendee Profile

Communities participating in this new conference included:

• Knowledge Representation / Artificial Intelligence
• Knowledge Organization / Libraries
• Internet / Semantic Web
• Document / Asset Management
• Knowledge Management

Not only were the number of knowledge communities represented quite varied, but the home base of the attendee audience was varied as well.  Of course we had attendees from all over the US.  But the international participation was quite impressive.  Attendees journeyed from such faraway places as Australia and  Austria, Canada and Cameroon, France and Finland, Norway and the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, Italy, Swaziland and Thailand.

Forming the Knowledge Technologies Community

To keep the acquaintances and conversations going, GCA will be hosting a new list serv.  All attendees to the conference will be enrolled.  This group is open to anyone else with an interest in knowledge technologies. To enroll, simply go to www.knowledgetechnologies.net for details.  Conference proceedings can be found at this site as well. One of the first orders of business will be to plan a face-to-face summit meeting for KT in the summer.

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