[Person-ontology] Let's get started

[Drummond Reed]

Hi folks,

I wear a number of hats:

* VP Infrastructure for Parity, the Boston-based company that initiated the Higgins Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgins_project),
* Chief architect for Cordance, the company that initiated work on what has become the XRI (Extensible Resource Identifier) standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XRI) and the upcoming XDI (XRI Data Interchange) standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XDI).
* Co-chair of the XRI and XDI Technical Committees at OASIS
        - http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xri/
        - http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xdi/
* Secretary of XDI.org (http://www.xdi.org).
* Steward of Identity Commons (http://wiki.idcommons.net), the upside-down umbrella organization of which the Identity Schemas Working Group is a part.
* Member of the Identity Schemas Working Group (http://identityschemas.org), of which this mailing list is a part.

I work closely with Parity CEO Paul Trevithick and the Parity and Higgins development teams on the relationship of Higgins and XDI, much of which focuses on ontologies. A few weeks ago at the Data Sharing Summit (http://datasharingsummit.com), Paul, Parity developer Markus Sabadello, and I introduced the Identity Commons Community Dictionary Service (CDS - http://cds.idschemas.idcommons.net). The CDS, in conjunction with the new Cloudtripper Project (http://www.cloudtripper.org) for development of Higgins context providers (the plug-ins that use the CDS and know how to talk to different data sources), is what led us to the conversation with Jim that resulted in starting this list.

I'm particularly excited about what we'll be discussing here because, although I'm a newbie when it comes to full formal ontologies, I'm steeped in the development of the XDI RDF model, which provides a powerful new way to express, address, and share both definitions and instances of ontologies. (See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/25531/xdi-rdf-model-v7.pdf for more info.)

So the combination of Higgins and XDI could, as Jim suggests, provide a bridge between the world of formal ontologies and rich new set of identity-enabled, user-centric applications for the benefit of both individuals and businesses the world over.

I look forward to learning more from real ontologists, and helping (wherever I can) to adapt their work to XDI and Higgins.

=Drummond
=============================
Drummond Reed
VP Infrastructure, Parity Communications
http://xri.net/=drummond.reed


> -----Original Message-----
> From: person-ontology-bounces at idcommons.net [mailto:person-ontology-
> bounces at idcommons.net] On Behalf Of Schoening, James R Mr CIV USA AMC
> Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 1:52 PM
> To: person-ontology at idcommons.net
> Subject: [Person-ontology] Let's get started
>
> Person-Ontology Participants,
>
>         The number of subscribers has leveled off around 28, so let's
> get started.
>
>         Let's start with self-introductions (for those who wish to speak
> up at this point).  Those just lurking at the moment are welcome to do
> so, and join in at any time.  In a couple days, I'll start with some
> orientation and a couple issues to discuss, which can overlap with
> introductions.  I'll start with my relevant background:
>
>         I'm an Electronics Engineer with the U.S. Army at Ft. Monmouth,
> NJ, but this is an after-hours professional activity for me.  I funded
> (from my Army position) the original development of the SUMO upper
> ontology (but Adam Pease gets the other 99% of the credit).  I organized
> and chaired the IEEE Standard Upper Ontology WG, which had a number of
> draft documents (including SUMO), but not enough consensus to pass any
> of them.  I've recently be offered the position as Data Strategy Team
> Leader of the Army Net-Centric Data Strategy Center of Excellence.  I've
> been pondering for years how ontologies and upper ontologies could
> enable individuals to gain control and utilize their personal
> information, which is the objective of this sub-group.
>
>         Next.
>
> Jim Schoening
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