Semantic Knowledge Management and Linked Data for Humanitarian Assistance

The challenges to sharing knowledge during humanitarian events are well documented. Of these, the lack of effective and meaningful communication between all actors in an event is the root cause of many of the inefficiencies that hinder the ultimate goal of relieving suffering and rebuilding societies. This paper outlines an approach for applying semantic knowledge management, ontological rules, and Linked Data approaches to address these issues. We introduce semLayer, a geospatially-enabled Semantic MediaWiki prototype application with mobile and wiki-based collection components, and discuss future features that will allow the application to better address humanitarian operations.