EBDVF 2023: Empowering Europe’s Data Innovation Ecosystem - Unveiling Excellence in Data-Driven i-Spaces

Valencia, Spain, 27 October 2023 — The Big Data Value Association (BDVA) made a significant announcement during the European Big Data Value Forum 2023, a landmark event in the data technology landscape. In a keynote titled “Envisaging a Data-Empowered Future with EUHubs4Data and i-Spaces Federation” Daniel Sáez-Domingo, Technology Transfer Director in ITI and coordinator of EUHubs4Data project highlighted the value that the i-Spaces community provides to European Data and AI strategy, preparing the stage for the great ceremony where the new quality labels for innovation data spaces, known as the i-Space label were unveiled.The session, which took place on 25 October from 18:00 to 18:45, placed the spotlight on the evolving landscape of data-driven innovation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. The discussion shed light on the pressing challenges faced by the industry, including the immediate need for accessible computing power for AI Innovators, the necessity of SMEs to integrate into data ecosystems and the increasing importance of data ethics for companies and large data holders.

The i-Spaces community, a consortium of organisations fostering secure data-sharing experimentation facilities, has introduced the i-Space label. This quality label serves as a benchmark, promoting and evolving the ambitions and community of these entities. By federating themselves, these organisations have formed a super-core for Europe, bringing together computing power, ethical guidelines, business models and more, creating a pan-European federated catalogue that accelerates the evolution and adoption of data-driven innovation and AI technologies.

BDVA recognises i-Spaces as pivotal instruments for driving data-driven innovation in Europe. These cross-sectorial and cross-organisational innovation hubs are central points for regional technology businesses to develop their products. i-Spaces accelerate the uptake of data-driven innovation across commercial sectors such as Manufacturing 4.0, Logistics, e-commerce and several others. They provide secure accelerator-style environments for running experiments in both private and open data, fostering technology and application development.

The evaluation process conducted by BDVA emphasises the excellence of Data-driven Experimentation and Innovation Spaces (BDVA i-Spaces) in crucial domains such as infrastructure, services, projects and sectors, ecosystem/impact, business/sustainability strategy, federation capabilities and ethics.

During this session at EBDVF 2023, BDVA announced the new labels for i-Spaces, celebrating their outstanding contributions to the European data and AI ecosystem. This recognition not only acknowledges the quality of these innovation spaces, but also highlights their pivotal role in shaping the future of data-driven technologies and innovation in Europe.

For further inquiries, please contact: daniel.djamo@bdva.eu

ABOUT BDVA:

The Big Data Value Association (BDVA) is an industry-driven organisation with a mission to develop an innovation ecosystem that enables the data-driven digital transformation of the economy and society in Europe. BDVA has over 230 members all over Europe and a well-balanced composition of large, small and medium-sized industries as well as research and user organisations. We focus on advancing in areas such as big data technologies and services, data platforms and data spaces, Industrial AI, data-driven value creation, standardisation and skills. BDVA has been the private side of the H2020 partnership Big Data Value cPPP, it is a private member of the EuroHPC JU and is also one of the founding members of the AI, Data and Robotics Partnership.

ABOUT EBDVF 2023:

The European Big Data Value Forum (EBDVF) is the flagship event of the European Big Data and Data-Driven AI Research and Innovation community. The 2023 edition brings together industry professionals, business developers, researchers and policymakers to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the big data sector.