I recently attended the Vespucci Initiative’s summer institute on geographic information science. It was held from 3-7 July 2006 outside of Florence, Italy. I’d never been to Italy before, and I had a fantastic time. It was my first foray into my own academic community, meeting with people who are doing research related to my own. I established a number of contacts with other graduate students, some of whom I hope to collaborate with in the future.

I got to share a lot of my ideas on the creation of ontologies for geographic information systems. My ideas are pretty radical and unlike the approach most ontology engineers take. I was a bit scared that people would think me insane, but the opposite turned out to be true. I was able to explain the complexity of my reasoning to academics as well as industry folks. They were intrigued by my ideas and my approach, so I came away from the workshop feeling pretty good about the work I’ve been doing over this last year. Of course, there are several more pieces of the puzzle that I have to work out, but I’m confident that I can contribute to the research and development of ontologies in information systems.

Firenze and Fiesole were beautiful. I didn’t care too much for the crowds in the city, and it was hot as hell, but being immersed in such an historic city and the Italian food and culture compensated. I did take a few pics, including some of il Duomo. I’d love to go back to Italy at some point and explore some other cities, like Venice, Genoa, and maybe even Rome.