Calling all Data and Technology Professionals to Participate: 2025 OMG Semantic Augmentation Challenge
Everyone knows that data drives the markets, but behind the scenes, financial sector data and analytics professionals struggle to interpret and integrate datasets that lack proper semantic documentation. CSV files, JSON structures, and other common formats typically provide only basic column or field names without explaining their true meaning or relationships. This semantic gap creates significant barriers to effective data use in business reporting, AI applications, compliance efforts, and analytics. As part of the OMG Financial Sector Domain Task Force's (FSDTF) effort to address this industry-wide (and beyond) reality, we announce our 2025 OMG Semantic Augmentation Challenge to invite and reward solutions to this critical problem!
OMG FSDTF members and their firms are interested in proposals for methods to use when datasets don't reference formal ontologies or provide clear semantic context, so that users don't need to guess meanings from column names and sample data. Usage of an appropriate, standardized solution(s) could reduce inefficiencies, errors, and missed opportunities to acquire and integrate valuable information assets across systems and organizations.
The 2025 OMG Semantic Augmentation Challenge invites practical and easy-to-use solutions to bridge this semantic gap through standardized metadata approaches. Innovation is welcomed, as is use (or expansion) of an existing specification(s) or approach. By developing better and standardized ways to augment datasets with machine-readable semantic references, we can transform how data is shared, understood, and utilized across industries. Our objective is to discover, or advance, existing metadata formats that can turn basic data structures into semantically rich resources that both humans and machines can interpret correctly.
What You'll Do
- Work with our sample Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) bank dataset
- Create metadata that maps columns to semantic references which provide meaning
- Show how your solution helps both humans and machines understand the data
- Demonstrate that your approach works with updated dataset versions
Why Participate
- $1,000 prize for the winning solution
- Showcase your work on the OMG website
- Present your solution at a special OMG online meeting on 22 July
- Help shape potential future standards
- Engage with industry leaders in data management
Submission Requirements
As described above, participants are provided with a dataset in CSV format, which they must use. Participants must , in turn, provide:
- A file that describes what is in each of the CSV columns by reference to external sources as opposed to self-contained text descriptions. Participants should show a mapping of columns in a machine-readable and processable format to common and citable resources.
- A specification for the format used for the mapping. The format used should reflect current best practices, languages, ergonomics, and technologies.
- Supporting materials about how the format works and how it would be extensible to other formats.
- A demonstration (e.g., a video) of the mapping being executed to transform the CSV file. All demonstrations and other requirements can be done remotely; no travel is required.
While not required, we would be especially interested in files that can be described in and/or mapped to RDF. Individuals and teams alike are welcome to enter.
The meaning of the columns of the dataset should be mapped to common and citable resources. We will expect at least one mapping to the Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO), and to OGC GeoSPARQL or GeoNames, but we also expect citations to a variety of other types of resources that will demonstrate the robustness of the mapping approach, for example. For more details about the problem and the Challenge itself, please click here for the full description.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS:
All submitted IP will remain the IP of the original owner. OMG's intent is to share certain materials of or about selected submissions online, unless usage is specifically withheld by the owner, so please indicate any restrictions and related details about its IP ownership.
Logistics:
Please send your submission in a single zip file to: [email protected].
Important Dates (all 2025)
- July 1: Submission deadline
- July 10: Shortlist announced
- July 17: Test with revised dataset
- July 22: Presentations by short-list members, final judging, and winner announcement (all public and online)
Organized by the Object Management Group's Financial Sector Domain Task Force