October 2007 Steve Bratt Chief Executive Officer World Wide Web Consortium New Web Technologies to Support Health Care and Life Sciences This presentation: on the Web

IT Challenges for Health Care and Life Sciences Organizations (and most others) Domain-specific terminology Interfacing and interoperability Legacy systems and data Risk management Competition and efficiency Mergers and acquisitions Corporate governance Relationship management Security Globalization Leveraging IT -- a challenge in itself! – XML, SOA, WS, mobile, semantics and more...

W3C Can Help You to … Make it (your content, data, services) Standard Accessible Mobile Web 2.0 Web 3.0 Useful

Make … Standard Why? Broad industry agreement (if done right) Interoperability... cross -app, -org, -data Avoids vendor lock-in... for providers and users Open access = no black boxes Mandated... by customers, government Royalty-free standards = good business sensebusiness sense

The Leading Web Standards Organization Engineering the Web’s foundation – technologists in 60 groups, working on (x)HTML, XML, CSS, Web Services, and tens of emerging standards 440 Members 40+ Liaisons 20 Offices – Newest: India, China, S. Africa

Why Participate in W3C? Saying in China*: "Third-class companies make products; second-class companies develop technology; first-class companies set standards." Leadership – Introduce ideas through submissions, workshops, Incubator GroupssubmissionsworkshopsIncubator Groups – Influence standards through Working Groups, review, implementationWorking Group Early insight into market trends – Access world's foremost Web technologists from Member & TeamMemberTeam – Plan for emerging technologies & markets through Member accessMember access Promoting image as innovator – Participate in int’l media activities, press releases, testimonialspress releases – Display logo on W3C site (300K visits/day) and W3C logo on your siteW3C siteW3C logo (Membership / Benefits / How to join W3C / "At a Glance" brochure)MembershipBenefitsHow to join W3C"At a Glance" brochure * from "China’s Post-WTO Technology Policy: Standards, Software and the Changing Nature of Techno-Nationalism", by Richard P. Suttmeier and Yao Xiangkui.

Make it … Accessible Web usage continues to expand Barriers for millions with disabilities Aging population = more disabled with age Often required (US regs, legal action)US regs Huge carry-over benefits Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case Web Accessibility W3C Web Accessibility Initiative – New Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 soon Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Access for people with disabilities and an aging population...

Make it … Mobile 2 billion people own mobile phones with Web browsers – million are actively used 2-3 million new mobile phones sold / day – Most new phones will continue to include simple Web browsers Potential for bringing the Web to more people is huge Graphic: Nokia

Mobile Web Initiative Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 (Summary)Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0Summary Authoring content for good user experience Effective delivery to and display on all mobile devices Leveraging existing Web standards Checker: Related Working Groups Device Description Ubiquitous Web Applications Developing Countries

Make it … Web 2.0 Web 2.0 – Users are authors – Dynamic interaction Web W3C = Rich Web Clients ActivityRich Web Clients Activity Starting with existing W3C standards & javascript – New HTML WG bringing most important spec up to dateHTML – DOM, CSS, SVG, are critical elements DOMCSSSVG Plus new standardization of work in the field – AJAX (XMLHTTPRequest object) and other JS featuresXMLHTTPRequest object – Widget packaging and delivery format, etc. Widget packaging and delivery format – Considering security, especially re: javascript use

Make it … Web 3.0 (Semantic Web) Web 1.0 = Linked Documents Web 3.0* = Linked Data (Semantic Web) Web becomes a global, relational database Semantic Web W3C Semantic Web Activity – Query, Rules, Content Labeling, Case Studies and Use Cases QueryRulesContent LabelingCase Studies and Use Cases *New York Times, InternetNewsNew York TimesInternetNews SubjectValue Property Where Subjects, Properties, Values can each have their own URLs, and thus are universally unique and linkable across the Web

Make it … Useful Increasing focus on end users – Supports application of standards to real, important problem – Improves standards: Use cases, requirements, implementation, testing Health Care and Life Sciences – "use of Semantic Web technologies... to improve collaboration, research and development, and innovation adoption" Interest in other verticals – Financial services, eGoverment, media, transportation, etc.

Informatics Interoperability: Current Situation Interoperability barriers are abundant – Millions wasted on low-value-added workarounds. User learning curves are high, adoption is low.

Value of Semantic Web to the Health Care / Life Sciences Semantic Web technologies offer c ommon data model to... –... to support domain-specific knowledge, vocabularies, taxonomies, etc. –... and make it easier for cross-domain understanding, searching, sharing, re-use, aggregating, and extending information – "Masters of the Semantic Web" (17 Oct 2005)Masters of the Semantic Web – Science and the Semantic Web: J. Hendler, Science, Vol 299, Issue 5606, , 24 January 2003 By embedding semantics, researchers will be able to: – Find cures to diseases – Make drugs safer and more affordable – Enable health-care providers to offer individualized care for patients – etc., etc., etc.

Informatics Interoperability: Based on Semantic Web Standards Interoperability: n. The ability of software and hardware from multiple providers on multiple machines to communicate – Better-informed users, decision making, prediction, automation.

Value of Health Care / Life Sciences to Semantic Web Analogy? – Life Sciences : Semantic Web = Physics : Web Challenging problem Interested community – Interoperable Informatics Infrastructure Consortium (I3C) asked for W3C's help – Successful W3C Workshop in October 2004W3C Workshop in October 2004 Great testbed for new Semantic technologies

W3C's Semantic Web for Health Care and Life Sciences Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences IG Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences – Chairs: Tonya Hongsermeier (Partners), Eric Neumann (Teranode) First face-to-face meeting in January 2006January 2006 – ~70 participants from 35+ organizations, including: – Agfa, AstraZeneca, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly, HL7, IBM, Merck, MITRE, Oracle, Partners, Pfizer, Science Commons, Siemens, Teranode, U. Manchester, Yale Charter:.. use of Semantic Web technologies and practices to improve collaboration, r&d, innovation adoption from bench to bedside Charter Task Forces working. Rechartering underway now.

For more information W3C Membership: How to become a W3C Member:

Selected References W3C: Mobile Web: Ubiquitous Web: Labeling: Voice: Multimodal: Accessibility: Internationalization: Developing Countries: Semantic Web: Security: