Semantically Enabled Knowledge Technologies (SEKT) was a three-year European Union (EU) research and development project, co-sponsored and co-coordinated by BT, in the field of semantic technology development. This research will help revolutionise our use of the web and databases with the development of applications for automating the extraction of meaningful knowledge from documents and data. Semantic technology involves big thinking about the future of how we work, how applications work, and how we employ information and knowledge throughout business and life.

“Semantic knowledge technology will remove the boundaries between document management, content management, and knowledge management.”
These applications will help machines such as PCs, PDAs and 3G phones close the gap between the human ability to judge relevance of information - applicable knowledge - and those machines' ability to simply identify documents and process data. Rather than keyword search as used today, knowledge will be retrieved on the basis of semantics, or meaning. In essence, it will make digital documents machine-processable and enable computers to analyse information more intelligently.

Semantic knowledge technology will remove the boundaries between document management, content management, and knowledge management. It will automatically deliver relevant information to the right people at the right time and at the right level across a range of user devices. This will free knowledge workers to focus on their core roles and creativity instead of searching for valuable information.

Get information, not just documents
The benefits to your business of further developing semantic technologies are as yet difficult to put into perspective. Put simply, current internet and intranet search technology delivers results based on specific document tags such as keywords. When you search for a particular word, you are directed to documents that contain that word.

Semantic technology, on the other hand, delivers information based on meta-data that describes and delivers relevant content contained in digital assets. So a search for "BT" might return documents which do not necessarily contain the acronym BT, but which do mention the UK telecommunications market - and semantic technology can then make the link to BT. This new technology aggregates large amounts of information without duplication, reducing the amount of time it takes to find the knowledge you and your workforce need.

BT advances the drive for information about information
In collaboration with four universities from all over Europe, the project has resulted in case studies that both prove the feasibility of semantic technology in use and show real-world applications in several knowledge-intensive fields: healthcare management, government, and BT's own digital library.

Solidifying its role as a leading partner in the field of knowledge management research, BT chaired the first annual European Semantic Technology Conference in May of 2007, in Vienna, Austria. The conference series provided a much-needed and lively meeting ground for business leaders, IT professionals, developers and researchers interested in the application and commercialisation of semantic technologies.