European conference shows interest in semantic tech growing

The 2nd annual ESTC finished on Friday last week with an interesting panel chaired by Paul Miller. In addition to Paul and myself there were a further 5 panellists and we’d been invited to discuss industrial uptake of semantic technologies. Paul's report on the panel can be found on his blog. As for myself, I was pleased, not to say relieved, in my role as conference chair to see that we achieved a (small) increase in numbers compared with the first year. Furthermore, there was a shift away from academic attendance and towards a higher proportion of industrial involvement, with 65% of attendees from industry as compared with last year's 50%. We also managed to attract some good press coverage: how's your German?