Powering The Next Data Revolution

Next Steps For Building The Open Knowledge Network

Overview

OKN, the open knowledge network, is a concept that envisions connecting many public, government, and other open datasets into one large connected information infrastructure. The benefit of creating this infrastructure is that government agencies, private organizations, academics, and anyone can better access and utilize open data to drive evidence-based policies, develop novel AI capabilities, and tackle societal problems.

The focus of the OKN innovation sprint was to construct a roadmap to building a prototype OKN through the development of compelling use cases to illustrate what might be possible with a fully functional open knowledge network.

That work is now complete and you can view the use cases here: OKN Use Cases, and the report here: OKN Roadmap Report.

Timeline

In the first phase, participating scientists, government agencies, and industry representatives formed teams and designed use cases.

In the second phase, groups dove deeper into those use cases to develop road maps to support the realization of the use case through an open knowledge network.

In the third phase, groups presented their work and developed concepts for integrating the use cases as foundational components of a prototype open knowledge network.

Background

Large knowledge structures with natural language query interfaces will enable new modes of data-driven discovery with the potential to impact science, education, business, and society in a manner comparable to the world wide web. Knowledge graphs are already widely used in industry for consumer services and enterprise applications, but are proprietary systems. To enable the maximum benefit to society, this sprint will lay the foundation for a nonproprietary shared knowledge infrastructure. To ensure impact, use cases will be built based on government agency data priorities and building on existing data infrastructures, but identifying challenges that can best be solved with integration of multiple data sets managed by multiple organizations.

For more insights see Open Knowledge Network: Summary of the Big Data Interagency Working Group Workshop, 2017 [https://www.nitrd.gov/pubs/open-knowledge-network-workshop-report-2018.pdf] and the Open Knowledge Network projects funded by the NSF Convergence Accelerator Track A [https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/announcements/090320.jsp]

Onward!

Going forward, the use cases (and new use cases) can be further developed and prepared for integration with the OKN.

To accomplish this, more government agencies and industry partners will need to be onboarded and encouraged to work with the various use case groups that exist and will emerge.

Final Meeting

Join the final meeting to learn more and contribute to the next steps for the OKN.

Simply click the link below and register for our Final Meeting on September 15th 1:30pm to 3pm ET.