Proposed Agenda

After beginning with an overview of the project vision, goals, and current status, the workshop will focus on the next steps—in the immediate future as well as over the new few years; how to get started; and, how to sustain the activity.

Day 1

Morning Plenaries Overview, vision, context. A recap of the vision and background, and discussion of new capabilities and new applications that could be enabled by such an infrastructure.

8:30-8:45 Welcome

8:45-9:05 Recap, and related NSF work

9:05-9:35 Vision and Technical Aspects (also cover state of the art in Knowledge Graphs)

9:35-9:45 What we want to achieve today

Presentation of related work. Brief overviews from agencies on tools and R&D activities that they have funded in related areas.

9:45-10:00 DARPA, Bill Regli

10:00-10:15 NASA, Tsengdar Lee

10:15-10:30 NIH, Michael Huerta

10:30-10:45 NIST, Ram Sriram

10:45-11:15 BREAK


11:15 – 12:50 Presentations by “Practitioners.” Content, state of the art and standards in the practice. Examples of the use of knowledge graphs in distinct domains/fields, to make the case for an Open Knowledge Network (OKN). This will include coverage of existing proximate formal and/or informal standards in those knowledge domains – such as ontologies, representations, etc.

        • The Horizontals, R. V. Guha
        • Practice: Geosciences, Yolanda Gil, University of Southern California
        • Practice: Biomedicine, Sergio Baranzini, University of California San Francisco
        • Practice: Finance, Mark D. Flood
        • Practice: Manufacturing, Barry Smith, University of Buffalo


12:50 – 2:00 LUNCH & NETWORKING

Day 1 PM

2:00-2:10 Breakouts on different topics. Topic areas include:

        • Bootstrapping/First Step. Which part of the OKN pipeline should be the first area for progress (perhaps by knowledge domain)—Data Extraction, Standards/Reconciliation, Content Acquisition, Infrastructure needed, Content Serving, etc.
        • Project Plan. How exactly would we bootstrap and build out the OKN. This includes 12-month; 3 year; 5-year project plans; overall structure of project activities, ordering of activities; infrastructure requirements; etc.
        • A coordinated community effort has the potential for getting this activity started without requiring large amounts of funding at the very beginning.
        • Mobilizing the Community. How can the activity be scaled up to include more segments of the community, and accommodate organic growth.
          • Coordination and governance. What are the coordination mechanisms and community structures; what structures should be put into place to support rapid but coordinated progress; agile development; maximum collaboration; and minimum bureaucratic overhead?
          • Competitions. Is it possible to devise competitions to engage more of the community, and also help the community efforts move forward.
            • Kaggle has offered to help in vetting competition ideas, and their formats; and to host competitions.

DAY 1 Evening

Cocktail reception sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University


Day 2

09:00-10:00 Breakouts continue; report-back presentations prepped

10:00-11:30 Reports back (Webcast)


11:30-12:15 Pick up LUNCH


12:15-2:00 Structuring for Continued Progress

(exact format will be determined over lunch)

      • What are the essential elements of increasing participation?
      • How do we, the Organizing Group, continue this progress?
      • Structuring for Progress – Steering? Role, frequencies, etc.

2:00-2:35 Outcome Action Items and Next Steps

2:35-2:45 In Closing