• 239 SMEs and 48 Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) from 26 countries have participated in i4Trust’s second open call, resulting in 17 experiments having been selected; ​​
• Formed by one DIH and at least three SMEs, each of the selected experiments will receive up to €120,000 in equity-free funding, alongside training and 9 months of coaching and mentoring;
• The chosen consortia will be fully supported by i4Trust’s core partners to test, pilot and scale concepts around secure and effective data ​sharing in ten different domains: Agrifood, Buildings, Cities, Energy, Environment, Logistics, Manufacturing, Mobility, Ports, and Tourism;
• Selected experiments will additionally have the chance to use a framework that aligns with first results of the Technology Convergence work running under the umbrella of the Data Spaces Business Alliance (DSBA);
• Experiments based on real use cases will demonstrate how the i4Trust framework provides a solid foundation for the creation of Data Spaces in Europe.

Berlin, Rotterdam, Warsaw – December 22, 2022 – FIWARE Foundation, iSHARE and FundingBox announce the start of 17 experiments that will address the development of innovative services, based on the i4Trust framework. These services will become reference models of how Data Spaces help to develop a sustainable Data Economy, based on fair and trusted data sharing. Each of the experiments will receive up to €120,000 in equity-free funding to design and execute their use case as well as a full provision of services during a 9-month mentoring programme.

The 17 European experiments from twelve countries were selected as a part of the i4Trust second open call, which was launched in May 2022. Formed by one DIH and at least three SMEs, the chosen consortia will be fully supported by i4Trust’s key partners guiding them through the implementation, testing, piloting, and scaling of their services. The experiments, covering real use cases in Agrifood, Buildings, Cities, Energy, Environment, Logistics, Manufacturing, Mobility, Ports, and Tourism, will demonstrate how existing processes can be further improved and new innovative services created through the secure and effective sharing of data between smart applications.

The Decentralised Trust Anchor and Identity and Access Management (IAM) framework of i4Trust aligns with first results of the Technology Convergence discussions under the umbrella of the Data Spaces Business Alliance (DSBA) launched by the Big Data Value Association (BDVA), FIWARE Foundation, Gaia-X and the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA). Therefore, selected experiments will be at the forefront of the Data Spaces movement in the EU.

What’s in store for the experiments

During the course of the mentoring program, the involved companies and DIHs will partake in a Cross Value Chain and Fundraising Bootcamps to explore potential synergies between the experiments and further work on their data sharing strategies. Between them, FIWARE, iSHARE and FundingBox – the three organisations leading the i4Trust program – have accumulated entrepreneurial experience while holding extensive technical expertise. Moreover, these organisations have an expansive network of renowned mentors, founders, investors, technologists, standards bodies and innovators who will add outstanding value to the experiments.

“We’re thrilled to welcome these new experiments joining the i4Trust programme. They will have the opportunity to test a new release of the i4Trust framework that materialises the Technology Convergence vision designed under the umbrella of the Data Spaces Business Alliance (DSBA). We look forward to showcasing the positive results – and the lessons learnt – that they will bring to the table, as the very first reference use cases that has been developed using the new release of the i4Trust building blocks”, commented Juanjo Hierro, i4Trust Project Coordinator, “As a result of joining the nine-month tailored mentoring program, SMEs, DIHs and technology partners involved in the experiments will become front runners in the Data Spaces revolution. They will show how organisations can work more efficiently and cost-effectively, collaborate with other parties to create innovative services for existing or new customers, and expand into new markets focused on data value chains. We expect the experiments to create a positive and long-lasting impact around the development of Data Spaces in Europe,” he added.

“With successfully closing the first round of mentoring program and starting of the next round we are defining the future of Data Sovereign Europe with introduction of real Data Spaces created using i4Trust building blocks. These Data Spaces enable new and innovative business services by means of sharing of data that these organisations never thought of sharing,” commented Rajiv Rajani, i4Trust Mentoring Programme Coordinator.

Open standards: the building blocks of data driven solutions and services

The i4Trust framework brings a set of curated open source building blocks based on open standards, namely: 1. Components for Digital Twin Data Exchange; 2. Smart Data Models; 3. Mechanisms supporting Decentralised Identity and Access Management; and 4. Trust Anchor, Data Marketplace and Data Publication Services. Using the framework, the experiments will solve concrete challenges in diverse business and production chains, as follows:

• Blockchain4ESG, Ukraine: a software solution for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) data risk management and data processing aimed at accelerating the transition of industrial enterprises to a low-carbon economy;
• Carbon Agri Data Space (CADS), Greece: service for the assessment of the carbon footprint of agricultural products in the process of growing as well as tools for sound adjustment of agro-technological, organisational and management decisions by food producers;
• Carbon Capture Supply Chain Trust (CAST), Germany: shared audit trail of digital twins data associated with complex multi-participant production chain of solidified carbon, highly susceptible to breaches of integrity;
• Data Space For Multimodal Passenger Mobility, The Netherlands: multimodal passenger mobility that connects Public Transport Authorities (PTA’s), Public Transport Operators (PTO’s) and MaaS Platforms in a trusted, federated and interoperable way;
• Data Spaces For Smart Energy (DARE), Greece: secure and efficient solution supporting trusted and effective sharing of IoT device data in smart buildings across stakeholders, enabling intelligent energy management and efficiency of buildings;
• DTaaS4aero, Spain: automated KPIs management data space for the effective Performance Based Predictive Maintenance of an aeronautical radio equipment, which in return will improve the radio service and reduce service interruptions;
• GlobShare, Belgium: secure, real-time network of data providers and consumers in specific breakbulk supply chains that will eliminate most of the practical and technical obstacles to share data and optimise insights and processes;
• Integrated Engineering Data Sharing (IDEAS), Italy: space of trust/sharing among different smart building and construction actors (building site managers/engineering structures and suppliers) to optimise activities carried out for the building process in construction sites;
• MANUSPACE, Ireland: digital trust ecosystem based on the efficient sharing of cross organisational data in pharmaceutical manufacturing that will help to improve supply chain security and help reduce the time to patient;
• Scaling up Unattended Delivery & Collection, The Netherlands: solution to scale up Unattended Delivery & Collection as an integral part of the food & non-food retail as well as Direct to Consumer (D2C) supply chains;
• SecuShare, Italy: flexible framework that will provide unambiguous sharing of data and consensus about key figures between the involved parties in large event management;
• Sharing Sensitive Smart Building Data on AMdEX, The Netherlands: Trusted Infrastructure and orchestration to make datastreams from sensors accessible to multiple parties, consistent with legal requirements business and consortium agreements in Smart Buildings;
• SmartEDIPort, Spain: Dataspace oriented to the ingestion, sharing and exploitation of data related to the maritime-port logistics chain in the Port of Huelva, for the optimization of the berthing-loading-unloading-departure operations of vessels through JIT (Just-In-Time);
• Solar Charge API, Greece: cloud service and standardised charging guidance to e-Mobility Service Providers that will incentivize drivers to charge with clean energy (Smart Charging);
• Tidy City, Portugal: Mobile computer vision solution to monitor public space infrastructures and automatically detect and classify problems and/or occurrences;
• TOURiLab-SDG, Spain: data space for the exchange of information between tourism entities that operate in a sustainable tourism context. Through a specific marketplace, in which sustainability coefficients of both companies and individuals are used, it helps in the generation of innovative products and services for eco-friendly tourism; ​​
• Trust-ur-Datacenter-data-2 (TurDD2), Finland: extension of Profirator platform to monitor and control data centres’ operations by leveraging on i4Trust components and standard data models.

About i4Trust

i4Trust’s aims is to support different players in the creation of Data Spaces by relying on common standard-based mechanisms for data interoperability, data value creation, as well as data sovereignty and trust. SMEs and DIHs – spanning across a wider variety of regions and sectors in Europe – have been invited to contribute with innovative experiments toward supporting a sustainable Data Economy. As such, the initiative will mobilise 5.8 million euros to boost data sharing and facilitate SME innovation capability through the creation of Data Spaces. For further information, visit the website.

Press Contact
Kseniia Chernikova, kseniia.chernikova@fiware.org

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant agreement No 951975.