Australian Expert Joins International Semantic Web Group

25 January 2006
Brisbane, Australia

Australia's role in the development of the Semantic Web was recognised earlier this month when the e-Health Research Centre's Dr David Hansen was accepted as a participant in the Semantic Web for Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group (HCLSIG), a recently formed World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) interest group that meets in Boston this week for its inaugural meeting.

Dr Hansen has an extensive background in data integration research and development in Australia and internationally, and is the Project Leader of the e-Health Research Centre's Health Data Integration (HDI) and e-Health Metadata & Ontologies projects.

"The Group has been formed to connect the medical industry with Semantic Web experts in an effort to improve collaboration, research and development, and innovation adoption in the health care and life science industries," says Dr Hansen.

"The W3C is developing standards and tools for the Semantic Web—the next generation of the World Wide Web. This technology relies heavily on metadata and ontologies."

The e-Health Research Centre, a joint venture between CSIRO and the Queensland Government, is uniquely placed to contribute to the initiative through its research activities.

In October last year, the CSIRO ICT Centre won the rights to host the Australian office of the W3C. Dr Alex Zelinsky, Director of CSIRO ICT Centre says "My plan is to increase the visibility of W3C in Australia and to create opportunities for Australian organisations to participate in W3C programs."

"The e-Health Research Centre's metadata and ontologies project will have a global impact through its contribution to the Sematic Web work of the W3C."

Speaking last November at the launch of HCLSIG, W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee highlighted that HCLSIG "puts W3C specifications through the paces of a dynamic, multifaceted and interdependent set of communities. We have a remarkable opportunity to listen to the area experts, to see how our work meets their needs, and to serve their future requirements."

About the W3C

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. Over 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium.

About the e-Health Research Centre

The e-Health Research Centre, a $15 million joint venture between CSIRO and the Queensland Government, is a leading national research facility in ICT for healthcare applications. Its world-class researchers conduct trials on e-health solutions and undertake R&D to improve healthcare decisions around the burden of chronic disease through technologies that harness the explosion of health data and enhance the ability to provide quality healthcare with a patient-centric focus.