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  <title>Tim Berners-Lee</title>
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<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/"><img alt="MIT" src="d040204-logo.gif"
align="right"></a><a></a><a href="http://www.csail.mit.edu/"><img alt="CSAIL"
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<h1>Tim Berners-Lee: Research</h1>

<p></p>

<p>MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)</p>

<p>My current research interest is the <a href="../../2001/sw">Semantic
Web</a>:  using the WWW infrastructure to create a global, decentralized,
weblike mesh of machine-processable knowledge. Please see my <a
href="Overview.html">general page</a> for information about other
subjects.</p>

<p>The Semantic Web can be described as doing for Knowledge Representation
what the Hypertext WWW did for hypertext.   It part of the completion of the
original dream of the Web. URIs and HTTP create a universal addressable space
of information, allowing things to be given globally unique and
dereferencable names.  By relaxing traditional constraints of global
consistency, we allow the system to grow to a global scale, maintaining local
consistency.</p>

<p>The impact on information technology will be to break down the information
barriers between organizations, and between applications.</p>

<p>Our research is specifically into pursuing practical projects which test
these concepts and distinguish areas for future research and possible
development of new standards.  We look at systems which combine inference and
web access; which are aware of the provenance of information, which can trust
information from difference sources in different ways, and can reinforce is
logical concept of trust with cryptography to make secure systems.</p>

<h3>MIT Students</h3>

<p>We are interested in working with students at any level, UROP, MEng or
PhD.  Send email and come talk to us.</p>

<p>Some of the UROP projects in the areas of using semantic web tools for
early adopter possible killer app areas such as personal information
integration, enterprise integration, and possibly public and scientific data,
not to mention the policy-aware integration across all these domains. We have
general tools such as cwm and application-specific semantic web adaptors -
the fun is connecting things together. We are looking at proof exchange
langauges which include cryptography, indexing the web of rules, remote query
and query delegation. We are happy to co-supervise with other groups in areas
such as Theory of Computation, Artificiail Intelligence, Distributed systems,
and so on.</p>

<h3>Student projects</h3>

<p>Currently we are looking for people to do do research based aroun the cwm
(python-based semantic web) and ontaria (prolog-based semantic web)
platforms. Other student projects (of millions - come talk to us) are for
example realted to <a href="../../DesignIssues/PaperTrail">Paper Trail</a>
and  <a href="../../DesignIssues/Diff">Diff, Patch, Update and Sync</a>. <a
href="../../DesignIssues/PaperTrail"></a></p>

<h3>Non-MIT Students</h3>

<p>Sorry, we do not have a program of internship for students at other
institutes. We collaborate with other labs, and W3C has a fellowship program
for employees of member companies.</p>

<h3>Colleagues</h3>

<!--
<p>Also working on semantic web stuff in this group:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Dan Connolly</li>
  <li>Sandro Hawke</li>
  <li>Eric Miller</li>
  <li>Eric Prud'hommeaux</li>
  <li>Ralph Swick</li>
  <li>Danny Weitzner</li>
</ul>
-->

<p>MIT CSAIL is one of the three host sites of the World Wide Web Consortium.
Our intention is always to allow the best communication and mutual guidance
between research and standards development, and between academia and
industry.  Several of my colleagues and I generally divide our time as between these
roles.</p>

<p></p>

<!--
<h3>Current Project</h3>

<p>Work here on <em>Semantic Web Advanced Development</em> is currenty funded
by DARPA under the <a href="http://www.daml.org/">DAML</a> program.</p>
-->
<h2><a name="Address">Address</a></h2>
<ul>
  <li><a href="../../Consortium/Directions.html">Directions</a></li>
</ul>
<dl>
  <dt>Email</dt>
    <dd>timbl @ w3.org</dd>
  <dt>Address</dt>
    <dd>32 Vassar Street<br>
      MIT room 32-G-524<br>
      Cambridge MA 02139<br>
      USA</dd>
  <dt>Phone</dt>
    <dd>+1 (617) 253 5702</dd>
  <dt>Fax:</dt>
    <dd>+1 (617) 258 5999</dd>
</dl>

<p></p>

<p></p>

<h2>Pointers</h2>
<ul>
  <li><a href="../../DesignIssues">Design Issues: Technical and philosophical
    notes on web architecture</a> A series of notes about how the web
    actually works and how to design new technology.</li>
</ul>

<p><a href="../../2000/10/swap/">SWAP: Semantic Web Application Platform</a>
is the codebase which we have been using as a pltform for our research.
Includes development of the <a href="../../DesignIssues/Notation3">N3</a>
language and the <a href="../../2000/10/swap/doc/cwm">cwm</a> general purpose
semantic web tool.</p>

<p>Tutorial on the semantic web</p>

<p></p>
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<p><i>$Id: Research.html,v 1.26 2010/07/06 18:07:50 timbl Exp $ timbl
timbl</i></p>
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