The Semantic Interoperability Expert Group of the AIOTI WG Standardisation has organised the workshop “Ontologies in the context of the Green and Digital Transition” during the IoT Week 2022, where experts in the field were invited to share their perspectives. The session was chaired by Laura Daniele (TNO and co-chair of the AIOTI WG on Semantic Interoperability) who welcomed experts in ontologies and standardisation fields to provide their viewpoints on the role played by ontologies in Twin Green and Digital Transition. The speakers of this session are summarised here below:
- Martin Bauer (NEC Laboratories Europe and co-chair of the AIOTI WG on Semantic Interoperability),
- Svetoslav Mihaylov (European Commission),
- Gjalt Loots (TNO),
- Dave Raggett (ERCIM),
- Alberto Abella (FIWARE Foundation)
- Raúl Garcia Castro (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and OntoCommons partner),
- Aitor Corchero (Eurecat),
- Enrico Scarrone (Telecom Italia).
The event was divided into 3 main parts:
- the 1st part revolved around an introductory session where Martin Bauer presented the activities performed by the AIOTI WG on semantic interoperability to develop the Ontology Landscape; and Svetoslav Mihaylov introduced the EU perspective on the Twin Green and Digital Transition;
- in the 2nd part, the speakers had the opportunity to discuss how to develop and use ontologies for the European Green Deal, the usability of ontologies and requirements from industry, and relations to other initiatives. The speakers of this session were:
- Raúl García-Castro, that presented examples on how to enable semantic interoperability in the European Green Deal;
- Gjalt Loots, who explained how to use ontologies on a large scale to InterConnect Smart Homes, Buildings and Grids;
- Dave Raggett, that showed the usability and scalability of Knowledge Graphs;
- Enrico Scarrone, who provided an overview of the role played by ontologies and standards in industry;
- Alberto Abella, who provided examples of agile standardisation with the Smart Data Models Program;
- Aitor Corchero, who showed examples of how to adopt data spaces inside the water sector.
- the final part introduced a panel discussion with all the speakers based on their statements and questions from the audience.
The main outcomes of this event can be summarised as follow:
- European projects play a key role in deploying ontology-based solutions for interoperability at high maturity level and on a large scale. OntoCommons is a good example as the project aims to build the OntoCommons Ontology EcoSystem to overcome interoperability issues in the materials and manufacturing fields.
- The value of adopting semantics and ontologies is well understood by both research and industry, but the latter find them still too challenging to implement.
- Lack of tools and trainings represent an issue that needs to be overcome to share knowledge and increase the adoption of ontologies in industry.
- The usability of large knowledge graphs and ontologies needs to be improved to increase their adoption.
- The standardisation process is often perceived as taking too long by industrial partners and there is still a lack of understanding of how we can standardise new ontologies. An example is provided by SAREF in ETSI.