Underwater Heritage as an Open Knowledge Graph with Neo4j

Description

Underwater cultural heritage is fragile and often invisible — not only beneath the sea, but buried in PDFs, scattered archives, and disconnected databases. While LLMs can generate summaries, they do not preserve structured, verifiable knowledge over time. Relational tables store records, but struggle to capture complex relationships such as trade routes, ocean currents, artifacts, and cross-border exchange.

This talk proposes modeling underwater heritage as an open knowledge graph — not as a product, but as shared, open infrastructure for cultural memory.

These ideas align with open knowledge ecosystems such as Wikidata and OpenStreetMap, where structured, linked data enables global collaboration across communities and domains.

Rather than focusing on specific tools, the session introduces open modeling principles and linked data concepts that make knowledge interoperable, extensible, and community-driven. We will also briefly demonstrate a minimal example using Neo4j as one practical implementation.

Taiwan, like Japan, is shaped by maritime history. What if we could structure this shared heritage as an open, cross-border knowledge graph — collaboratively maintained and globally connected?

At its core, this talk asks:

If knowledge must outlive tools, models, and vendors — where should it live?

This session is for beginners and anyone interested in open data, linked data, and meaningful knowledge design. All examples use open data and open tools, so you can explore and extend the approach yourself.

Outline (30 minutes)

1. Fragmented cultural data
2. Limits of PDFs, tables, and AI-generated summaries
3. Open knowledge graph and linked data principles
4. Minimal example (Neo4j as one implementation)
5. Cross-border and community-driven knowledge

Key Takeaways

Participants will:

• Understand why current approaches fail to capture complex relationships
• Learn how to model heritage as interconnected, structured data
• See a simple, practical graph-based example
• Understand the role of open, linked knowledge in global and cross-border collaboration