XTech Conference to Add Focus on Open Data

Edd Dumbill just sent me an email, letting me know about the change in focus of the XTech Conference, which will be held in Amsterdam May 24-27. And that added focus is indeed squarely on our radar. Edd writes:

"This used to be the XML Europe conference and this year I've tried a big experiment. XML and semweb content is restricted to 50% of the program, and I've added in Browsers and what I'm calling 'open data' to the program.

The browser track hits the two issues of the future of UI (XAML vs XUL vs Ajax, XHTML2 vs WHATWG) and also the emerging XForms, proving very attractive to anybody with a reasonable glut of forms apps (so, practically every enterprise and government). People wise, I've got the Mozilla Foundation decamping more or less en bloc to the conference, so I feel confident of good things.

'Open data' is a wee bit more experimental. I'm trying to tie together the democratisation of data and its access by the Web. So there's Science Commons, Open Mapping, RSS and Government, plus the tech and policy issues to deal with when organisations like the BBC start opening up their data.

It all promises to be the most fun I've ever had with the conference. I'm optimistic, and you can bet I'll be crowing about it if it comes off.