i3-MARKET Newsletter #4 - Preparing for the Public Launch
Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
Category: News
Digital Transformation by Means of Big Data, Marketplaces and Data Economy
Digital Transformation has arrived and currently, it is happening too fast for societies to truly harness the powers of the transformation. In times when the new fuel is data, marketplaces for bringing value to data assets are growing ever popular and data economy models are still under development, many design aspects for the Digital Transformation still needs to be defined.
SMEs and Entrepreneurs are facing the biggest challenge and face major hurdles in comparison with large industries and corporations who traditionally dominate the large data markets. However, Digital Transformation is an opportunity for new ideas, disruptive models and only SME’s and Entrepreneurs are have the speed and agility to adopt and adapt new business models, in relation to how large industries. function. In a workshop at the European Big Data Value Forum, the i3-MARKET partners explored how data and data marketplaces can be opened up to European SME and Entrepreneurs through the use of new technologies.
The workshop began with Project Coordinator Dr Martin Serrano identifying the trends that are powering the digital transformation and the benefits of greater digitalisation, such as:
- Data-driven, analytics based customer experience is a priority
- Emergence of new online business models will drive growth
- A strong focus on resilient supply chains leveraging analytics
- The growth of a flexible work culture will drive benefits for both employees and employers
- Remote talent management will be a key requirement
- Providers will focus on building 5G infrastructure
- Cybersecurity will remain a top priority
- AI as a complementary technology for diverse use cases
- The cloud and IoT will be common infrastructures
- Blockchain will increasingly be considered as a mainstream technology
Data will be a driver of many of these processes, and for Europe, and European SMEs to be able to harness these trends, data marketplaces will need to become enablers of data sharing and exchanges, across multiple domains.
To do so, backend technologies are needed that facilitate the connection between marketplaces and allow easier access for SMEs, that may not have the capacity to find relevant data or ensure that it is in a useable format for their systems.
Ivan Martinez Rodriguez, of ATOS, and Marcio Mateus further developed this idea, explaining how tools to allow for federation of data marketplaces and exchanges would help marketplaces to co-exist. Ivan introduced the i3-MARKET backplane as a specific tool that allows data marketplaces to interact with eachother, following a data-centric approach.
Alessandro Amicone, of GFT further explained how the backplane would work, and how i3-MARKET has implemented and SNK-RI to facilitate the use of the service, so that SMEs can take advantage of multiple data services without having to learn and operate the different technologies and interfaces that they run on. For more information on this, and to view the building blocks of the i3-MARKET backplane, you can go to the Open Source i3-MARKET website .
Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
Categories
Interoperability and Open Source Software
Interoperability and Open Source Workshop
i3-MARKET chaired a workshop, co-located with the 11th International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2021), that focused on Interoperability and Open Source Software Solutions for European businesses.
Concept
The evolution of the Internet of Things has created a complex ecosystem populated by various Internet of Things (IoT) platforms that provide access to a broad range of things. These IoT platforms typically promote their specific interfaces and information models, and often adopt non-standard, sometimes fully proprietary, protocols to control a variety of things. This fragmentation and missing interoperability currently prevent the emergence of cooperative IoT ecosystems in which applications can be built to simply use things, or to enable things operated by different platforms to interact.
Workshop
The 4th Workshop on Interoperability and Open-Source Solutions for the Internet of Things focused on addressing this challenge, bringing together the community of industry players, stakeholders and open source communities. The main objective of the event was to exchange experiences and ideas with the IoT and Data communities as well as contribute to build new knowledge analyzing open issues and identify gaps on interoperability, architectural principles, marketplaces and standardization for future. It featured the voice of industrial experts, by providing an environment where attendees (presential or remotely) had the opportunity to explore interoperability solutions stemming from research and innovation projects and showcase practical experiences on interoperable IoT solutions and promote open-source solutions.
Papers
The 2021 InterOSS – Interoperability and Open Source Solutions Workshop paper will be online in due course.
The authors and their papers are below:
Dr. Helmi Ben Hmida, T-Systems International – IoT & Digital Transformation Expert – Senior Program Manager
Industrial keynote Central Topic: Paper KS1: IoT & Digital Transformation: Challenges and Opportunities
Dr. Helmi Ben Hmida spoke about the current challenges that Digital Transformation impose over the current Technologies and Markets. After managing several large scale IoT projects touching several verticals and domains (City, health, building, mobility, weather, work…etc. ), Dr. Helmi Ben Hmida believes that a successful Digital\IoT business needs some characteristics that are the baseline for success. Based on his experience, Dr. Helmi Ben Hmida provided a vision on the Opportunities for progressing the state of the art with technologies like Big Data, IoT and AI.
Semantic Interoperability: A review for IoT Edge Computing and Robotics Applications
Presenter: Eoin Jordan
Graph Neural Networks for Personalized Research Paper Recommendation
Presenter: Rishabh Chandaliya
Geospatial data: Overview of the state of the art and insight into future applications
Presenter: Alex Acquier
Boosting the interoperability of isolated data and services in rural areas across Europe
Presenter: Diego Casado-Mansilla
Dr. John Soldatos, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence Expert – (Industrial IoT, Industry 4.0, Finance 4.0)
Expert keynote Central Topic: Paper KS2: AI, IoT and BIG Data: Research Problems Unsolved
Dr. John Soldatos spoke about the Trends and current big issues on using IoT, Big Data and AI, from IoT Data to Big Data and Cloud Technology to a more human-Centric social and ethical aspects on AI. Dr. John Soldatos provided a vision on the most relevant research topics that remain unresolved and activities that can progress the state of the art in coming years with technologies like Big Data, IoT and AI.
Eco-Credits: Designing interoperable datasets and innovative blended financial techniques to restore ecosystems and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Presenter: Niall O’Brolchain
Introducing a Data Marketplace design approach: A Step towards Data Monetisation, a Jump into a Digital Single Data Marketplace.
Presenter: Chi Hung Le
Towards lowering the barriers for BigData, IoT and AI-driven technologies, boosting regulatory compliance and stimulating FinTechs and InsuranceTechs Innovation.
Presenter: Martin Serrano
Supporting the creation of Online Interoperable Data Services for the European Digital Data Marketplace Industry.
Presenter: Achille Zappa
Contact
Organizers:
Martin Serrano (National university of Ireland; Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, Ireland), martin.serrano@insight-centre.org
Achille Zappa (National university of Ireland; Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, Ireland), achille.zappa@insight-centre.org
Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
i3-MARKET at Digital Around the World 2021
i3-MARKET hosted a session at Digital Around the World 2021 this October, which focused on how big data and data marketplaces can power Europe’s digital transformation. Leading the discussions, Coordinator Dr Martin Serrano explained the current trends and ambitions from the European Parliament and Commission that demonstate the emphasis that they are placing on Europe’s digital transformation. He identified the top trends powering this transformation as:
- Data driven, analytics based customer experience
- Emergence of online business models will drive growth
- Focus on resilient supply chains leveraging analytics
- Growth of flexible work culture will drive benefits for both employers and employees
- Remote talent management will be key requirement
- Providers will focus on building 5G infrastructure
- Cybersecurity will continue to be a major focus
- AI as a complementary technology for diverse use cases
- The cloud and IoT as common infrastructure
- Blockchain will increasingly be considered a mainstream technology
Achille Zappa, Coordinator of i3-MARKET then explained how the development of the use of big data, and the growth of European data marketplaces could be a key enables in accelerating these trends, and allowing European companies to take advantage of European data. He highlighted how European initiatives, such as the i3-MARKET Backplane, will allow companies greater access to data and data marketplaces, for both buying and selling
The event also featured contributions from Gerrit Rosam, from the TRUSTS Project; Bijan Yadollahi, of the DOME 4.0 project and Ernesto Troiano. More than 50 people were watching online, while over 600 people watched more than 100 speakers from 53 countries take part in the whole event.
You can watch the recoding of the event on the event website, using this link.
Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
Categories
i3-MARKET Impact: ATOS
i3-MARKET Impact: ATOS
1. How do you view your company’s/organisation’s role in i3-MARKET?
ATOS is part of i3-Market because we want to connect data marketplaces all over Europe and start exploring new collaborations and partnerships, by taking part of the i3-market backplane as a model for data federation for cross-sectorial data industries. ATOS is aiming to contribute towards the promotion of the Data Economy and data markets, and to stay positioned with AGORA as a reference data marketplace to trade-off Automotive and Mobility data.
2. Why do you participate in the project? How can i3-MARKET have a long-term impact on your work?
There are several ways that i3-MARKET can create a positive impact for ATOS Research and Innovation. However, one of the most promising ways is the i3-MARKET backplane, as ATOS will explore the possibility to use this approach to connect different initiatives around data-driven platforms. The AGORA data marketplace is in fact one such example, but we also have other vertical platforms for data sharing such as DataPass (from the BodyPass project) enabling data exchange between the health and consumer goods sectors, FUSE for energy data, MASAI for manufacturing or UDP for city or infrastructures data management, among others. We plan to investigate throughout the project whether the i3-MARKET backplane approach could be used as backbone to interconnect these platforms.
3. What do you think will be the main benefits of the i3-MARKET to the end-users?
There are several stakeholders who can benefit from i3-MARKET deployment. For instance, Data Consumers who are currently connected with one of existing vertical data marketplaces can gain access through a seamless, secure, and trustworthy way to data sources from industries that aren’t present in AGORA, Siemens or IBM data marketplaces. In this case, a Data Consumer from AGORA can retrieve data from the Siemens or IBM data marketplace by using the i3-MARKET backplane as a middleware platform to interconnect Data Consumers, and Providers all over Europe. It means a huge opportunity for the cross-selling opportunities of those vertical data markets to also provide added-value services to new Data Consumers.
Then, from the Data Provider side, our network partners may currently only trust in one data marketplace to handle their data exchanges, which creates a significant barrier to use other data marketplace providers. In this case, the i3-MARKET backplane can serve as a unique solution as an open source interface to enable data trade-offs and exchange operations among different data marketplace operators. Therefore, each i3-MARKET data marketplace can make it possible for Data Providers to connect to new channels, customer segments and early adopters of the other potential Data customers that had previously been out of reach.
4. In your opinion, what’s the most exciting and inspiring thing about the i3-MARKET?
Finally, i3-market is addressing one major challenge for data-driven industries which is how to enable data exchange among several data platforms providers, marketplaces, data lakes, warehouses, etc. in a common standard language. Therefore, data interoperability should be provided by design to enable the communication among the different providers, sources, types of data, etc. which should be semantically agreed when actors subscribe to data exchange contracts. It would remove the brand-dependant characteristics of the data sources stored in each data marketplace of the project to foster the creation of data-driven services from specially SMEs, and start-ups aiming to ingest data to create new algorithms, data-driven uses cases, or machine learning models for improve maintenance operations, as a examples of possible services which use data as a key resource.
Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
Categories
i3-MARKET Motivation: Telesto Technologies
i3-MARKET Motivation: Telesto Technologies
1) How do you view your company’s/organisation’s role in i3-MARKET?
As one of the three SMEs involved in the project, we bring in our agility and know-how in order to facilitate the various developments and team work toward the common goal of the consortium.
2) Why do you participate in the project? How can i3-MARKET have a long-term impact on your work?
The project focuses on the creation of a backplane allowing access to a wider audience of providers and users. It will enrich our research background in terms of marketplace backplane development and reinforce our legacy in specific topics that we will work on through the project.
i3-Market deals with marketplaces in cutting edge technologies that open numerous research and also commercial opportunities for our company.
We also intend to integrate the developed modules within i3-market in our portfolio of offerings as a company.
3) What do you think will be the main benefits of the i3-MARKET to the end-users?
The i3-market will provide the end-users with a larger choice of data to acquire and more opportunities to sell data, making it accessible to a wider audience than what is observed today in the market. All procedures are going to be secure and will use blockchain technologies so that the end-users can benefit of the advantages. Aggregating entities such as i3-Market and similar multi-sided-platforms provide substantial value to previously isolated marketplaces since cross-cutting collaborations and business models can arise, apart from critical mass creation in an integrated ecosystem.
4) In your opinion, what’s the most exciting and inspiring thing about the i3-MARKET?
It will revolutionise the landscape of marketplaces and the data providers’ and users’ way of managing data through a one stop shop. It is also important to note that it brings together novel processes and cutting edge technologies as well as renowned technological partners into a seamless aggregating ecosystem.
Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
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i3-MARKET White Paper Released
i3-MARKET Publishes White Paper
“Data is the new gold”, but how do we become successful gold diggers? In other words, how can we incentivize and connect data owners, data providers and data consumers, and how can we spark the light that will ignite the European data market? In our first White Paper, we examine the opportunities and challenges that European data marketplaces provide, before looking at the vision of i3-MARKET, and how the i3-MARKET backplane is being deployed in three industrial sectors to initiate greater access to data for European companies.
Authors: Susanne Stahnke, Siemens; Vasiliki Koniakou, AUEB; Martin Serrano, NUIG; Birthe Boehm, Siemens; Stratos Baloutsos, AUEB; Raul Santos, ATOS.
Download the Paper Here, or Read it Below!
i3-MARKET-Plug_Your_Data_to_the_World_via_Open_Trusted_and_Reliable_Marketplace_Backplane-White-Paper-2021.Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
Categories
i3-MARKET at the IDSA Summit 2021
i3-MARKET at the IDSA Summit 2021
i3-MARKET Coordinator Dr Martin Serrano took part in the IDSA Summit 2021 on 23 June, sharing information on how open source solutions can contribute to the development of European Data Spaces, and introducing the audience to the i3-MARKET Backplane, our Open Source solution for integrating European data marketplaces into a single interface.
He introduced the design process behind the Backplane (seen in the Tweets below) and explained why increasing access to data is important for Europe’s growing data economy.
The video from the event will available soon.
"The i3-MARKET Backplane empowers #DataOwners to better monetize their data and access a larger market"#IDSAsummit pic.twitter.com/0UBSHzg6D9
— i3-MARKET (@i3market_eu) June 23, 2021
Introducing the i3-MARKET stack, with @DrSerranoMartin - showing how the Backplane will interact with #datamarkets and provide value for the EU #dataeconomy pic.twitter.com/bm3Hbe5751
— i3-MARKET (@i3market_eu) June 23, 2021
Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
Categories
IBM: Partner Impact and Vision
IBM: Partner Vision and Impact
How do you view your company’s/organisation’s role in i3-MARKET?
“To bring in the viewpoint from handling personal data with all its privacy and GDPR aspects and contribute sample data and simulation approaches from elderly monitoring as well as insights from different elderly monitoring applications. We can provide artificial intelligence expertise, and in particular, a realistic evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses and make available creative solutions to the consortium that use the good tools developed to support artificial intelligence without implementing end-to-end solutions that now trigger concerns. Finally, IBM can also bring the view of a big company in the information industry.”
Why do you participate in the project? How can i3-MARKET have a long-term impact on your work?
“Being able to develop platforms that allow the secure exchange of IoT data so that no individual building of IoT platforms is necessary which can apply to platforms initially in the wellbeing area and potentially later in the healthcare sector. With this concept Europe can promote its digital economy and help smaller and mid-size companies to establish a stake in these important fields. IBM is focused on supporting a diverse portfolio of companies in diverse industries with state-of-the-art information processing solutions that will drive future digital economies.”
What do you think will be the main benefits of the i3-MARKET to the end-users?
The availability of more useful IoT solutions more quickly and at lower cost can help drive the field away from the big data gathering companies that do not respect privacy. The elimination of the need to build vertical silos with each sensing platform and therefore spread the benefits of European digital economy to more small and medium enterprises, which can make digital technology consumable and a cornerstone of future businesses. This will enable new business opportunities in the digital space.”
In your opinion, what’s the most exciting and inspiring thing about the i3-MARKET?
“Smart contracts that will allow exchange of IoT data without fear of loosing the investment as it is now the case with the normal internet platforms. Interaction with major players in Europe that are interested to cooperate as part of a future digital economy. Data exchange across different industry silos.”
Disclaimer
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.
Categories
Newsletter #3
The Coordinator’s Foreword
We are pleased to launch v1 of the i3-MARKET Backplane!
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Launch of the i3-MARKET Backplane
 The i3-MARKET Backplane is now live! Representing the culmination of the first phase of the project, the backplane is the results of the reference architecture, the mapping of the security, privacy and trust requirements and will now be tested in three different industrial settings. In the words of Dr Martin Serrano, of Insight Centre, the Backplane provides the support tools to promote a joint ecosystem for unified European data marketplaces and data spaces, that can address the diverse needs that the demand side for data markets and spaces creates, and as a service provides a one-size-fits-all solution.
i3-MARKET will contribute to the growth of the European data market economy by providing solutions using blockchain-like technologies for managing data operations and transactions and encrypted-based technologies for data protection. This will be used for implementing the data markets integration and thus developing a trusted, decentralised backplane consisting of the following three pillars:
The Backplane has been built around three key pillars: security, trust and privacy. By embedding these pillars from the initial design phase, we can ensure that the Backplane respects the rights of invididuals regarding their data, and that users can be feel safe and encouraged to use the marketplace. This will foster trust not just in the system itself, but in the wider European data marketplace, promoting growth and empowering European data providers, users and owners.
You will soon be able to integrate and test the Backplane yourself, by visiting our software page |
Pilot Testing
 The consortium will implement and integrate the i3-MARKET backplane in three industrial domains (Industrial pilots), which will examine the viability of the implementation, test its reliability and validate whether it’s scalable in real industrial environments. In the data world of the automotive sector, Atos maintains the AGORA data marketplace which will be integrated into the i3-MARKET backplane. AGORA brings data supply and demand together and provides the possibility of efficient matchmaking through an open and brand-independent platform. |
“Open Data, Open Markets and Open Source Software Tools for European Marketplaces” Workshop
 i3-MARKET hosted a Workshop at the BDVA Data Week, that identified and introduced technologies and solutions for a trusted (secure, self-governing, consensus-based and auditable), interoperable (semantic-driven) and decentralised (scalability) marketplace infrastructure. The Workshop focused on open-source software technologies that enable federation via interoperability of the existing and future emerging data spaces and marketplaces. You can see the presentations using the link below. |
i3-MARKET at the European Big Data Value Forum 2021
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i3-MARKET was thrilled to participate in the Data Forum, hosted by the EUHUBS4DATA project, on 30 March. Stratos Baloutsos was a speaker on the panel on Challenges that Businesses face in exploiting the European Data Market.
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i3-Market Contribution to BDVA/Dairo Projects Meeting
 Project Coordinator Achille Zappa took part in the BDVA/DAIRO Project Meeting on 21 April, presenting the i3-MARKET research on semantic data models for enabling/enhancing interoperability in Data Marketplaces, specifically on the DCAT Data Model Extension and OCASUS Ontology approach that the project is employing. |
i3-MARKET consortium partners in the spotlight
In this edition, get to know SIEMENS, who are bringing their data expertise from the manufacturing sector! Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for more than 170 years. Active around the world, the company focuses on intelligent infrastructure for buildings and distributed energy systems and on automation and digitalization in the process and manufacturing industries. Siemens brings together the digital and physical worlds to benefit customers and society. Technology is the central in-house research unit at Siemens and works alongside the business units to drive forward the basic technologies that are important for the company as a whole. In i3-MARKET, Technology research groups based in Germany and Romania drive requirements engineering, architecture derivation, and technical realization in close collaboration with the partners. They focus on Smart Contracts, Blockchain technologies, Data access API/SDK, and security, privacy and trust requirements, and lead together the Industrial Pilot #2 Intelligent Manufacturing Sector for validation of i3-MARKET solutions. |
i3-MARKET Impact
Each month, we will be highlighting the impact the i3-MARKET can have by discussing with our partners what they do in i3-MARKET, why they are excited by the project and what they think the benefits of the project research will be.
You can learn about how i3-MARKET will help the Athens University of Economics and Business and the European DIGITAL SME Alliance on our website.
Let’s stay in touch!
| If you are interested in the i3-MARKET project objectives, progress and results of activities, we encourage you to get involved and continuously follow i3-MARKET’s updates! |
The i3-Market project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 871754.