Diego Berrueta

The end of the year is often an opportunity to look back to what we did during the last 12 months. That's what I did a year ago, and that's what I'm going to do in this post. Let me remember...

This year I traveled a lot (maybe too much). In January I went to America for the first time. I was in Boston for two days (one, two and back at home) to attend to a W3C meeting. In October, I went to Amsterdam for a new meeting, and this was also my first time there (day one and two). Other interesting places I've visited this year include Berlin, Poznan (Poland) and Paris (although this wasn't my first time in Paris, it was nice to return there). I also slept one night in London, although I wasn't intended to. In Spain, I visited Zaragoza, Logroño (briefly), Valladolid, Madrid and Bilbao, to name a few.

In June, I presented my PhD research project (the last and necessary step before the PhD thesis). Nowadays, I'm working on my PhD dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Labra and a new foreign co-director that I recruited in October. I'm doing real progress, but I'm far from finished. One of my purposes for the upcoming year is to go public with my thesis, i.e., to publish my ideas.

Besides my PhD activity, some of my research was published this year, including some papers and even a chapter in a book. I also had the opportunity to advise an excellent Master Degree project. At the same time, one of the previous projects received a national award, and it paved the way for me (and others) to join the SIOC initiative and to become a co-author of the SIOC submission to the W3C.

I also tried to increase my involvement in the SWD working group at W3C. I volunteered to review some documents, I developed Vapour and I contributed to the new draft of the Recipes document. Anyway, I would like to become more involved during the next year.

I was invited to give lectures in a Master Course and at a Summer Course, both at the University of Oviedo.

This was also a vibrant year at work, but (as usual) I'm not going to say anymore about this. I have the privilege of working with competent colleagues and excellent friends, and that makes everything much easier.

Finally, a geeky note: I equipped myself with new gadgets during this year: a decent mobile phone, a new PDA device, a funny gaming device and, more recently, a new laptop to replace my aging iBook.