OKKAM · Enabling the Web of Entities. A scalable and sustainable solution for systematic and global identifier reuse in decentralized information environments

The overall goal of the OKKAM project is to enable the Web of Entities, a global digital space for publishing and managing information about entities , where every entity is uniquely identified, and links between entities can be explicitly specified and exploited in a variety of scenarios. Compared to the WWW, the main differences are that the domain of entities is extended beyond the realm of digital resources to include objects in other realms like products, organizations, associations, countries, events, publications, hotels or people; and that links between entities are extended beyond hyperlinks to include virtually any type of relation.<br/>The WWW has clearly demonstrated the socio-economical potential of enabling a global decentralized network of documents, connected by hyperlinks, and services built on top of this infrastructure. In a short period of time, we have witnessed how the WWW has had a remarkable impact on our personal, social and professional lives. We believe that the Web of Entities has the potential to increase this impact, and to foster a whole new family of applications and services. However, to make this happen, the Web of Entities must trigger (as the WWW did) what economists call network externality effect , and this requires at least three pillars to be in place: (1) a suitable infrastructure which can support the open and sustainable growth of the Web of Entities; (2) a critical mass of new entity-aware content and data accessible to a very large number of users in a relatively short time; and (3) a collection of exemplary and high impact applications, which can prove to the key players in ICT that investing on the Web of Entities is worthwhile.<br/>The OKKAM project presents a strategy and an effective work plan to build the three pillars of this Web of Entities, not only from a technical point of view, but also from a social, organizational and business-oriented perspective.