Deep Web Technologies' Innovations Contribute to DOE Science Search Technology

Oak Ridge, TN - The 2008 SBIR Small Business of the Year award, announced today by the Department of Energy, acknowledged the web search innovations of Deep Web Technologies, Inc., which has made remarkable advances in an unconventional technology, called federated search. Using federated search, the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) has created and deployed groundbreaking tools for making larger quantities of science and technology information available to more people, more quickly and more easily than ever before possible. DOE announced the award June 25 during its 9th Annual Small Business Conference in San Antonio, Texas. The award recognizes a firm that exemplifies the spirit of DOE's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, thus strengthening and expanding competitiveness of U.S. small high-technology research and development business in the federal marketplace.

"OSTI is continuously seeking ways to make web search faster and more precise for citizens everywhere," said Dr. Walter Warnick, OSTI director. OSTI's tools find the richest science content by simultaneously searching hard-to-find collections of information, sorting through the results, and rapidly returning findings relevant to the user's query. "The SBIR program and Deep Web Technologies have been key contributors by researching unconventional technological solutions and developing innovative web-based capabilities. Ultimately these innovations have benefitted the science information consumer as we utilized the research to develop and deploy applications for the Department of Energy." Other Federal agencies and private companies are also deploying the technology developed by Deep Web Technologies.

In 2003, the company received its first DOE SBIR award, for the project, "Distributed Relevance Ranking in Heterogeneous Document Collections." That competitive grant award for improved searching of web databases research led to the enhanced search capabilities that were later introduced in Science.gov. Unique among web portals, Science.gov makes the U.S. government research and development (R&D) from 13 federal agencies available and searchable to anyone with web access, via one query. Much of this information is not otherwise accessible via conventional search engines. WorldWideScience.org, which performs a search similar to Science.gov, except of national databases and portals around the world, is also founded on the work of Deep Web Technologies.

Abe Lederman, founder and chief technology officer, said, "Deep Web Technologies has worked to significantly advance the state-of-the-art in web search technology, particularly federated search technology." This year, DWT received an SBIR award for "Leveraging Wikipedia to Create a Comprehensive Science & Technology Encyclopedia." Deep Web Technologies has headquarters in Santa Fe.

OSTI accelerates the advancement of science by making R&D findings rapidly available to researchers and the American public. OSTI is host to both Science.gov and WorldWideScience.org and is located in Oak Ridge, TN.

DOE's Small Business Awards program was established to recognize performance by departmental offices, facility management contractors and small business joint ventures on an annual basis.

OSTI Press Releases