Our Story: 15+ Years of Innovation

From open source healthcare to semantic data infrastructure—the research foundation behind the Semantic Data Charter (SDC4)

Not a New Idea—A Natural Evolution

When we incorporated Axius SDC, Inc. in October 2025, we weren't starting from scratch. We were taking 15+ years of validated research, proven concepts, and international collaboration and bringing it to market.

This is the story of how semantic data modeling evolved from academic research in healthcare to a production platform serving any domain—and why that foundation matters.

The Journey

2000-2009

FreePM / TORCH

The Beginning: Open source healthcare applications for practice management and electronic health records.

  • • SourceForge open source projects
  • • LinuxMedNews community
  • • Foundation for semantic modeling
2009-2017

MLHIM Research

Academic Validation: Multi-Level Health Information Model—proving semantic data modeling works in healthcare.

  • 430 commits in specifications repository
  • 165+ citations on Google Scholar
  • 12+ peer-reviewed publications (AMIA, JCI, JAMA, IEEE/ACM)
  • • International collaboration established (Brazil, Canada, US)
2012-2025

S3Model Evolution

Domain-Agnostic Generalization: Taking healthcare concepts to any domain—finance, government, research, commerce.

  • 1,586 commits across 22 repositories (2012-2025)
  • • Last commit: June 16, 2025
  • • Domain-agnostic validation complete
  • • Architecture refined for production
2025-Present

SDC4 / Axius SDC, Inc.

Production Platform: Research → Commercial transition. Built on proven foundation, ready for market.

  • 1,228 commits in SDCStudio (4 months)
  • Latest: October 25, 2025 (active development)
  • Production package: sdcvalidator on PyPI
  • Company incorporated: October 2025
  • Team: International (US, Canada, Brazil)

By the Numbers

2,200+
Total Commits
(2013-2025)
165+
Academic Citations
(Google Scholar)
12+
Peer-Reviewed
Publications
25
Years of
Collaboration

Why Our Foundation Matters

Not Vaporware

With 1,228 commits in 4 months and our latest commit from October 25, 2025, we're actively building. Our sdcvalidator package is production-ready on PyPI. This isn't slides—it's working code.

Not Serial Rebranding

MLHIM → S3Model → SDC4 represents intentional evolution: healthcare → domain-agnostic → commercial. Each phase has working code, specifications, and publications. 2,200+ commits across 12 years with no gaps in development.

Real Collaboration

Our team has 17-25 years of partnership, verified by ICMJE disclosure forms (the gold standard journals use). These forms are verified independently—they cannot be faked. Our collaboration is documented in co-authored publications and joint projects.

Academic Validation

165+ citations and 12+ peer-reviewed publications in top venues (AMIA, JCI, JAMA, IEEE/ACM) prove the concepts work. This isn't untested theory—it's validated research ready for production.

The Team Behind the Journey

Axius SDC, Inc. is founded by three partners who've been working together for decades:

TC

Timothy W. Cook

Founder & CEO

Creator of FreePM, MLHIM, S3Model, and SDC4. 25+ years in semantic data modeling and open source healthcare.

LC

Dr. Luciana Tricai Cavalini, PhD

Co-Founder & Partner

Professor, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). 17 years collaboration. Expert in health informatics and social epidemiology.

NS

Dr. Nikki Shaw, PhD

Co-Founder & Partner

Professor, Algoma University. 25 years collaboration. Expert in health informatics implementation and adoption.

100% founder-owned. No outside investors. No board pressure. Just three researchers who've spent decades solving this problem, now bringing it to market.

Everything We Claim Is Verifiable

We don't ask you to "trust us"—we provide artifacts you can independently verify. That's why we've made our entire historical archive public.

Git History

2,200+ commits with full Git history (2013-2025) in our public historical archive

Publications

All papers with DOIs verifiable on Google Scholar and PubMed

Production Code

sdcvalidator package live on PyPI. Latest commit from yesterday.

The Journey Continues

We're not a new startup with an untested idea. We're 15+ years of validated research, ready for production. Our foundation is solid. Our team is experienced. Our vision is clear.

Want to learn more? Let's talk about how semantic data infrastructure can transform your organization.

Get in Touch