6th Westminster Digital Business Symposium

About this event

On 12 November 2026, a special anniversary event will mark 30 years since the publication of Business Objects: Re-Engineering for Re-Use and three decades of BORO — the Business Object Reference Ontology.

Since its publication in 1996, Business Objects has helped shape thinking around ontology, conceptual modelling, enterprise information and semantic integration. The BORO foundational ontology has subsequently been applied and developed across a wide range of projects in industry, government and research, providing a rigorous foundation for understanding complex domains and improving the structure, integration and reuse of information.

The event brings together speakers who have been directly involved in some of the most significant projects based on BORO. They will share the stories behind the work: the problems they set out to solve, how BORO was applied, the challenges encountered and the lessons learned through practical implementation.

The programme will combine history, real-world case studies, lessons learned and forward-looking discussion about the development of BORO over the past 30 years. It will also consider the continuing relevance of ontology-based approaches as organisations face increasingly complex data environments, interoperability challenges and the need for more coherent information models.

Alongside reflections on past projects, the event will provide an opportunity to explore how the principles introduced in Business Objects continue to inform current thinking in ontology, enterprise architecture, data modelling and semantic technologies.

The event is intended for academics, practitioners and professionals with an interest in BORO, ontology, conceptual modelling and enterprise information systems, whether through direct involvement, related projects or wider research and professional practice.

Thirty years of BORO: reflecting on what has been achieved, what has been learned, and what comes next.

Schedule

9:00 - 9:20: Registration and refreshments

Morning Session

9:20 - 9:30: Welcome and introduction

• Sergio de Cesare 

9:30 - 10:00: A quick review of 30+ years

• Chris Partridge

10:00 - 10:30: Thirty Years of Working with BORO, and I'm Still Stupid Enough to Keep Trying

• Ian Bailey

10:30 - 10:45: Thirty Years of Working with BORO, and I'm Still Stupid Enough to Keep Trying

• Sergio de Cesare and Mark Lycett

10:45 - 11:00: A brief History of UPDM, UAF and IDEAS

• Graham Bleakley

11:00 - 11:30: Origins of DoDAF, Continuing Relevance, and Future

• Dave McDaniel

11:30 - 11:45: Coffee break

11:45 - 12:15: How can we bCLEARer on BORO

• Mesbah Khan, Alexander Hierl

12:15 - 12:45: Four dimensionalism, digital twins and systems thinking – but not necessarily in that order

• Mark Enzer

12:45 - 13:15: Morning Panel with Q&A

• Chair: Mark Enzer

13:15 - 14:00: Lunch

Afternoon Session

14:00 - 14:30: Developing High Quality Data Models of Business Objects: How Hard Can It Be?

• Al Cooke

14:30 - 15:00: (A Selection of) Temporal parts of the IES

• Nigel Dewdney, Andreas Cola

15:00 - 15:30 From Core Constructional Ontology to Unification of Universes

• Carlo Nicolai, Salvatore Florio

15:30 - 15:45 : Coffee break

15:45 - 16:15 ISO 15926, Lessons across implementing a four-dimensional approach across 20 years

• David Leal, Jonathan Eyre

16:15 - 16:30 BORO in Agda at SysFEAT

• Antoine Lonjon

16:30 - 16:45 Building 4D into Cybersecurity

• David Lacey

16:45 - 17:10 Afternoon Panel with Q&A

• Chair: Salvatore Florio

17:10 - 17:15: Closing

• Sergio de Cesare