In the province of Québec, four local markets — Les Choux gras, La Chèvre et le Chou, Du terroir à l’Armoir and Les Radieux — have joined forces to tackle a common challenge: competing with major retailers like supermarkets and Amazon. Faced with a limited product range and difficulties in attracting wholesale buyers, they have embraced an innovative solution: creating a unified online marketplace experience.

With this approach, supported by Startin’blox’s open-source technologies and the Beckn protocol, these markets can now offer a consolidated product selection. This strengthens their appeal to both individual consumers and wholesale buyers while promoting more sustainable local supply chains.

The problem

• Wholesale buyers wish to source from local markets, but they often don’t encounter the quantities they are looking for
• Local markets have a limited product offering, which limits their attractiveness for the end consumer and competitiveness against supermarkets

The solution

The solution these 4 local food markets came up with is to be perceived as a unified market online. Their product offerings and their respective quantities are made available to the end consumer in a unified shopping experience and, as if she was shopping in a bigger market, with more products and in bigger quantities.

Expected outcome of the project

• Increased attractiveness for end users: With a consolidated offering, local markets can better compete with large retailers and satisfy the needs of their individual buyers.
• Increased attractiveness for wholesale buyers: Wholesale buyers will have access to the quantities that they need, making local food markets a viable procurement option for them.

       Technical Solution by Startin’blox

Technology Used

The Beckn Protocol: To ensure the interoperability across the ecommerce platforms of the four markets, we have implemented the Beckn protocol. Proven effective in the mobility sector in India, powering more than 4 million transactions per month, this protocol facilitates seamless transactions across different platforms, e.g. buying a product on platform A that actually comes from platform B. Beckn enables products from each local food market to be sold on an extra ecommerce platform deployed by the city of Lévis.

 Deliverables

• Stock management software:Locavora is the software already utilized by these local food markets to run their operations. It allows them to do:
  1. Stock management
  2. Retail
  3. Fulfillment tracking

By making the stock management feature of Locavora compatible with the Beckn protocol, we enabled local food hubs to make their products available on several online marketplaces, instead of just their own.

• A unified marketplace: The city of Lévis has developed a marketplace that sources its products directly from the local food hubs thanks to the Beckn protocol. This marketplace aggregates the food products within a unified platform where the citizens of the city of Lévis can shop local food products in a user-friendly way, all of them in one place.

Challenges faced

We are one of the first organizations in the world to implement the Beckn protocol on a real world pilot, based on live data with 4 different market players and a city. As the protocol is still young, the amount of open source code available is limited, and not always well documented. We had to do a lot by ourselves, with the support of the Beckn Foundation.

Partners

You can find here the list of our partners on this project. 

• Financial partners:
  • The Federation of cooperatives in the Québec region (CQCM) 
  • The European research program NGI Sargasso.
• Technical partners:
  • Locavora is an open source ecommerce platform dedicated to local food hubs and Locavora is powering the local food markets involved in this project.

• Beckn Protocol is an open specification developed in India, enabling several websites to sell each other’s products, in a peer-to-peer fashion, with no intermediary. 

• Strategic partner: Open Food Network is an international network of local food hubs totalling 11,5 M$ of annual food products transactions. Open Food Network is expanding the open retail network that we initiated in other areas of Canada and the United States.

• Local food hubs: 
  • Les Choux gras: This project, launched by enthusiasts of permaculture and sustainable development, aims to revitalize the southern Bellechasse region socially, environmentally, and economically. Born from consultations in 2015, it took shape as a solidarity cooperative based in Saint-Damien-de-Buckland, featuring a model permaculture site.

• La Chèvre et le Chou: The grocery store, founded in 2016 by four passionate individuals, offers organic products in partnership with the “Aux Sources” shop in St Sauveur de Montagut. For the past seven years, it has remained committed to providing high-quality local products at affordable prices, following an ethical approach. As an association, it prioritizes horizontal governance and strong connections with its members to foster a solidarity-based economy.

• Du terroir à l’Armoire: “Du terroir à l’armoire” is an online shopping platform specializing in the sale of local and bulk products. It offers a wide range of fresh, high-quality items sourced from regional producers and artisans, with an emphasis on environmentally friendly practices. The platform provides pickup and home delivery services, allowing consumers to easily access local food while supporting the local economy and reducing the carbon footprint associated with product transportation.

•  Les Radieux: The regional initiative Les Radieux focuses on the economic valorization of harvest surpluses for farmers by providing real-time support for managing their surplus produce. Its goal is to improve access to standard and downgraded local fruits and vegetables in the Chaudière-Appalaches region while contributing to sustainable development and adaptation to climate change, thereby creating a sustainable alternative food system.

• The city of Lévis: Eager to help the local food hubs of its region, the city of Lévis has deployed its own food products marketplace to boost the sales of local food products.

Next steps

With the current projects players, but also external foundations interested in the project, we are working on scaling this open food commerce network beyond the participants in this pilot in the Québec region.

The post A New Approach to Food Commerce in the Québec region appeared first on Startin'blox.

Introduction

We had the pleasure of interviewing Sébastien Trottier, founder of Locavora.org, a platform that revolutionizes the online sale of local products.

1. Background: 

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to start Locavora.org?
What were the first challenges ?

Sebastien Trottier (ST): I have a degree in Computer Engineering and I worked for about 15 years in telecommunication systems engineering before getting involved in a local food hub as a volunteer and later as a director.

I took charge of the transactional website used by the food hub to sell online and I developed it further. I understood that local food hubs starting up were lacking in knowledge in the online sales space and in logistics in general.  

I’ve launched an organization to offer a turnkey solution to food hubs that would allow a quick launch of an online offering of local producers for a region. I’ve named it Locavora.

2. Platform Overview: 

Can you describe Locavora.org and its main features? 

ST: Locavora is a Platform-as-a-Service to quickly launch a local online marketplace of regional producers through a food hub handling the deliveries. Retail customers are the main targets but it can be used by commercial buyers also.

It is based on recurring ordering windows where the orders of the customers are bundled together and transmitted to the producers at the end of the period. The producers handle their product catalog and order directly through the platform.

Producers features: Product Catalog – inventory service – orders – customer communications

Food Hub features: Management of ordering windows – pick-up locations – deliveries – orders – membership management – promotions – loyalty programs

What impact has Locavora.org had on local producers and consumers since its launch? 

ST: About a dozen food hubs used the Locavora platform to quickly launch a local online sale channel for their producers. Consumers are given access to local food production, with a single pick-up location (or delivery method), while keeping a direct link to the producers.

Producer groups were able to quickly reach customers with online sales with pickup locations during the sanitary restrictions of COVID-19 using the Locavora service.

Interoperability & Integration

3. Interoperability Goals: 

Why is interoperability with other platforms like lachevreetlechou.ca and duterroiralarmoire.com important for Locavora?

ST: We strive to have the various food hubs exchange with each other, especially those who share producers so that the producers only have to manage their product catalog and inventory on a single system, allowing them to concentrate on their core activities.

Also, consumers will have access to more products since the offering from many hubs will be combined.

How can interoperability benefit you?

ST: Locavora is a non profit with the goal of making local food production more accessible 

How can interoperability benefit local food hubs?

ST: By giving access to more producers and more customers

Can it boost revenue?

ST: Yes, by providing access to more products to more customers

4. Beckn Protocol: 

How do you see the Beckn protocol helping Locavora achieve its interoperability goals?

ST: Yes, it provides an open network architecture with clear roles that separate customer acquisition from producer acquisition. Also, the exchange protocol is well defined, with reference implementation provided and it is already deployed on a large scale in India.

5. Solid Protocol Integration: 

Do you see any potential in integrating the Solid protocol with Beckn for Locavora?

ST: We’re planning to use the taxonomies defined by the Data Food Consortium to define the product type and facets of the products and If there are other areas of product definition not well covered by Beckn, we’ll use Solid as much as possible yes.

6. Technical Hurdles: 

What technical challenges do you foresee in implementing these interoperability solutions?

ST: Beckn involves many nodes with complex interactions – there is still much to learn and a multitude of things that can go wrong when everything is put together.

How can they be resolved ?

ST: Planning carefully, defining clear milestones, crafting automated testing, getting help fro skilled people.

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Last time I traveled to Lisbon, I forgot my contraceptive pill. When my alarm rang at 21:00 to remind me to take it, I realized that it was nowhere to be found… Luckily 15 min away, a pharmacy was still open for half an hour. I rushed to arrive on time but to my utmost surprise, the female pharmacist refused to deliver me my pill, with the good reason that without a prescription, she could not legally deliver it to me. The way I got out of this situation is of no interest for this article, but It left me wondering why I was not able to prove to my unhelpful pharmacist that I did have a legit prescription for my contraceptive pill issued by a certified doctor in Paris…

Let’s dream a perfect health system

As a thought experiment, I imagined what I wish my experience had been on that stressful day. Back to my hotel room! It’s 21:00, my alarm rings to remind me to take the pill, and I realize that I’ve forgotten it in Paris. I open my health mobile app where all my health history is recorded: my stays in hospitals, my doctors appointments, my prescriptions, my blood type, my allergies, my chronic diseases… I quickly find my contraceptive pill prescription, and the app helps me to find the closest pharmacy that is still open where this specific pill is available. I pre-order it. The pharmacist receives a notification of my order and is able to verify that my prescription is issued by a certified French doctor. She validates the order and prepares it. I pay online and walk to the pharmacy to collect it before it closes. This purchase is logged into my health application, if I need to access it at a later date.

Let’s make it happen!

Let’s stop dreaming: let’s do it!

To make it easier to move from our dream to reality, let’s simplify our dream. What I would have loved to convince my pharmacist of is that I do have a legitimate prescription in my room in Paris, issued by a certified French doctor. Let’s focus on the prescription to start with.

Never without my prescription

In my dream, my prescription is not a piece of paper that I can lose or forget. It’s a right, issued to me by my doctors, to gain access to a medicine that I need. This right is mine, and it should travel with me everywhere that I go. When one of my doctors issues a prescription on her system, it should automatically be shared with me and appear in my health application, so I can show it to my pharmacist.

As I have several doctors: a generalist practitioner, a gynecologist and a pulmonologist, my health application needs to be able to connect to their system in a standardized way, they need to speak a common language.

Because the systems of my different doctors use a common language, my application is able to interact with them, to access my prescriptions for instance.

My health app is therefore able to access all my prescriptions from the systems of my certified doctors. I can grant access to my pharmacist, so she can also access the one prescribing my pill. She can now access my prescription by herself in her system and deliver me my medicine.

We will call it a Data Space

When the different information systems of my doctors and my pharmacist are compatible and can exchange data, we have a special word for it, we say they are interoperable. And when an ecosystem of interoperable systems is open for others to join, is following a language that any organization can use, is promoting the autonomy of its participants and the security of the data being accessed, we call it a data space. 

In our example here, we are designing a data space dedicated to heath, or a health data space, in which doctors, pharmacies and patients are able to share data with one another in a way that is controlled by the patient. Of course, we are over simplifying here. We are not talking about contracts to access the data, authentication to login as a pharmacist or a doctor, access permissions to access a specific prescription, governance about how to express a specific piece of data, how to host the data securely, how to find it. But… you get the idea. A Data Space is a way for different organizations to exchange data, it will enable my doctor to talk to my pharmacist, and it will improve my experience as a patient and distracted traveler. It is not limited to the health sector, Data Spaces exist in many different industries: transport, food, media, manufacturing…

What is Startin’blox?

The doctor who creates a prescription and the pharmacist and patient who accesses it uses an application. Startin’blox is the best technology to build such an application, i.e. one that is compatible with your Data Space. Startin’blox applications are: 

• Easy to develop
• Enable data discoverability, e.g. we help the pharmacist to find the right prescription on the system of the right doctor
• Foster data usability, e.g. we enable the patient to use her data to gain access to her medicine
• Encourage trust, e.g. we certify to the pharmacist that the prescription is legit and issued by a certified French doctor
• Valorize data, e.g. we could imagine the pharmacist to upsell the patient by understanding better the patient in front of her

Wrapping up

That’s it! Now you know it all about Data Spaces, almost. If the topic is of interest to you, feel free to reach out at alex@startinblox.com. You’ll be well received! 

Have a great day!

The post Data spaces explained simply appeared first on Startin'blox.

Data Spaces are now a global movement. Initiated in Europe, we already see them replicated in the United States, in China and in India. Of course the shapes and forms vary, as well as the way to get there, and nobody is so sure yet what they are, and how to use them.

At Startin’blox, we have been involved in the creation of interoperable and decentralized data spaces for 5 years, working on 30 different projects in 3 different continents. In this article, we want to share our experience about how to build Data Spaces that are part of the current digital economy, and not outlandish.

From siloed platforms to interoperable ecosystems

The web economy is currently handled by a handful of siloed platforms that lock their users in, and encapsulate their data in a black box. If as a shop owner, I upload my products on Amazon to sell online for example, I can only sell on Amazon. I cannot reuse the data of my products to sell on another platform. I cannot reuse the goodwill I’ve built with my customers on another platform. My products’ data is locked in. My user account is locked in.

To integrate these platforms to data spaces, or to create data spaces that can compete on their turf, one necessary step is data interoperability, i.e. having web platforms where data is not locked in, and where user accounts are not locked in. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been working on this challenge for as long as the Web has existed, that is to say more than 30 years, and has come up with a set of standards to make these “Data Space enabled” platforms possible. To name a few for the connoisseurs in the audience: Verifiable Credentials (VC), Decentralized Identifiers (DID), Resources Description Framework (RDF), Linked Data Platform (LDP), Access Control Policy (ACP), Linked Data Notifications (LDN).

To simplify communication, most of these standards are gathered under a single banner: Solid. Solid aims to create interoperability between web platforms, enabling data to be expressed consistently across platforms, and to get rid of the black box effect. If all the platforms were Solid compatible, I could display my list of products registered on Amazon on other e-commerce platforms, and vice versa.

The value Data Spaces bring to their members depends on their capacity to unify access to data. By leveraging the state-of-the-art W3C Solid standards, they can unlock high-value use cases, e.g. real-time multimodal transport, otherwise impossible.

From single platforms to interconnected services

In the previous section, we saw that data interoperability between platforms is a first condition to turn them into a successful data space, but it is not enough. Having a common way to express data, e.g. the departure time of a transport, does not create any revenue. In order to add business value to this data sharing, they need to integrate it to their business model and foster revenue. This is where transactions come into play.

A transaction is a purchase, from a buyer to a seller. When I’m ordering food online, when I’m ordering a ride, when I’m buying a product: I’m issuing a transaction. Transactions today are happening within the platforms’ black boxes. As an example, I can only buy a ride from a specific driver on Uber, if it is the app she has registered herself on. I cannot use another application to issue that transaction.

Beckn is a decentralized protocol to enable cross-platform transactions. Thanks to Beckn, complex multi-businesses interactions, e.g. multimodal transportation, ordering a taxi and a train ticket from a single app becomes commonplace. Different applications, potentially an infinity of them, are then able to sell the different products and services found in a given Data Space.

The value Data spaces can bring to their end users depends on their capacity to seamlessly transact with multiple businesses. By leveraging Beckn, the biggest transaction protocol in the world, Data Space bring new business opportunities to their end users, e.g. ordering a taxi and a train ticket in a single transaction.

From a couple of gatekeepers to a galaxy of Data Space applications

So the data of our platforms are now compatible with one another thanks to Solid, and we can now trigger sales from any application to any company thanks to Beckn. Is this enough to integrate Data Spaces into the Web economy?

Well… how will the end users interact with the data space? Today, we use applications to interact with the data of the services that we use and to trigger transactions. When I shop on Amazon, I use an app that displays useful data to me, i.e. about the gym pants that I want to buy, and I issue a transaction when I end up buying my sexy tiger leggings (do not judge me). As an end-user, I have no clue about data standards, interoperability and decentralized transactions. All I care about is my user-friendly app and my privacy, I don’t want to know what’s behind it.

If we want Data Spaces to become part of the Web, they need to disappear. From the end user’s perspective, they need to become a pleasant shopping experience, a nice source of information or a useful service. They need to offer interfaces as diverse as the different use cases that exist among their end-users. Applications are the interface to access what the web has to offer today, and they will continue to be once Data Spaces blend with the web. A myriad of applications will be vying to become our favorite interface to carry on a specific type of transactions, e.g. ordering a car ride.

Web components is a standard fostering modularity and reusability on the web. By bringing this modularity to data spaces, web components bring data spaces into the hands of the end-users, without them knowing about data spaces at all. For instance, the cart component that I use to buy my sexy leggings can be a web component shared by thousands of over web platforms, lowering the cost to develop them and improving the overall quality and user experience. Modularity is therefore key to scaling data space beyond the niche of early adopters.

The amount of financial interactions end users will have with their Data Spaces directly depends on their user-friendliness. Thanks to Web Components , Startin’blox offers super-powered applications, e.g. ordering my entire transport journey from the website of my airline.

Wrapping up

We do not mean to pretend we have all the answers. Which company is responsible for customer support when a traveler is having an issue with her multimodal train-plane-taxi ticket? How to ensure a quality delivery in a world where an infinity of platforms can sell your products? How not to overwhelm the end user with info in a world where theoretically every platform can sell any service or product? We do not know.

What we know is that there is a way to integrate Data Spaces to the Web economy, with production ready protocols and identified value-added use cases. Our goal is to ease the integration of data spaces for any end-user, individual or small business, big corporation or public administration.

If this prospect sounds exciting, if you think we are daydreaming, or if you simply have a comment you’d like to share, please reach out at alex@startinblox.com.

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Startin’Blox is a co-founding member and a technical expert of the TAMIS project – Audiovisual Traceability of distributed Secured Metadata. The European film and media industry faces significant challenges related to data management. Data loss, information incompatibility between companies, and copyright management issues impede the efficiency and competitiveness of this dynamic sector.

What is TAMIS?

TAMIS is a project spearheaded by CST, of which Startin’blox is a co-founder and leading technical solution provider, along with other key members like France TV, Newen Studios, ISAN, Procirep and CST. 

Which problem is it trying to address?

The aim of TAMIS is to respond to the data sharing issues raised in the film industry. It is implementing data interoperability solutions to address several concrete use cases in the film industry, namely:

1. The under usage of movie assets, such as subtitles, 3D models, or entire movies
2. The difficulty to identify the copyright owner of a given asset, i.e. a subtitle
3. The constant wheel reinvention by recreating subtitles, 3D models or scenary catalogs that were already created by another actor of the ecosystem, but in a way that is not discoverable
4. The overall data loss along the production line of a movie, preventing for instance to automatically list the musics played in the movie

What’s the envisioned solution? 

Solutions that data interoperability can bring to the movie industry’s pain points created interest and awareness around the TAMIS initiative. Asset owners can expect to grow their revenue by increasing the sales of their assets, while buyers will save the cost and hassle to recreate these assets. 

To maximize assets usage, assets need to be easily and intuitively found. When a broadcaster is looking for a subtitle, she should find it instantly, and she should have a simple and trustful way to contract with its copyright owner. The digital twins of these assets, or the metadata describing these assets, must be expressed in a way that is consistent and findable in order to foster their reusability.

What’s Startin’blox’s role in the project?

Startin’Blox plays an essential role in transforming TAMIS’ vision into deployed solutions in the movie industry.

Data Interoperability

One first step is to define a common Data format. Ontologies such as EBUCore already exist to align the different data formats. As semantic web experts, we’ll ensure that existing ontologies are put to use, and that the different data driven use-cases expressed above are covered by a common format any newcomer can easily align herself with. Having an industry-wide data format will facilitate asset discovery and copyright owner identification.

Open Source commodities 

The creation of open-source components and connectors facilitates interoperability among various digital solutions within the film industry ecosystem. Data converters, connectors and interface components are among the commodities we’ll produce to help the different members of TAMIS to align their digital twins with the common vocabulary, find and share assets with the rest of the movie ecosystem and easily build applications, e.g. a decentralized subtitle finder.

Creating Interoperable Applications

Startin’blox will leverage the produced digital commodities and develop interoperable applications for the different members of TAMIS to avoid reinventing the wheel and avoid re-developing a 3D model that already exists, or increase the monetization of a scenery catalog.

Startin’Blox plays a crucial role within the TAMIS initiative, aimed at addressing data management issues, information incompatibility, and copyright management in the European film industry.

TAMIS is defining common data formats, developing open-source components, and creating interoperable applications.If you have a data sharing or a data interoperability challenge, if you are in the process of creating a data space, or if you simply want to learn more, reach out to us. We’ll be happy to hear about your initiative and to share our expertise. You can contact us at alex@startinblox.com

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Introduction and partners:

“A SOLID start for communities” : This blog post introduces a collaboration between the WIMMICS research team and the company Startin’blox about searching and querying data in a SOLID ecosystem. With SOLID, data can be distributed over multiple storages (PODs) accross multiple servers. In such a scenario, finding a piece of information becomes complex and might lead to excessive response time or resource consumption. Our work will be to study how we can reduce limiting factors to improve the performances.

WIMMICS is a joint research team between Inria, the Université Côte d’Azur and the CNRS (I3S). Its researchers are interested in the representation and processing of knowledge graphs, particularly on the Web.

Startin’blox is a company developing an innovative and ethical technology based on open standards to create federated applications based on linked data and web components. This French company has developed a SOLID compliant server built on top of a Django architecture and also provides a Web-Component based Javascript framework to ease the applications development.

The collaboration also involves the Mycelium and the Data Food Consortium projects. Both are working to make the short supply chain more efficient. These projects want to empower short supply chain actors on a digital level giving them the ability to build a whole suite of tools they control. Solid is a great choice as it can give back users the control over their data and applications through interoperability based on open standards.

Detailed project :

The objective of this collaboration is the design and evaluation of methods for search, indexing and discovery of services and datasets within the Solid ecosystem.  The Solid project, for SOcial LInked Data, launched in 2015 by Tim Berners-Lee and incubated at the W3C, proposes the specification of a new web application architecture allowing a complete decoupling between data storage and business applications. Thus, the massive deployment of applications respecting Solid standards would make it possible to re-establish decentralisation on the web and give users the possibility of keeping control of their data, in storages called PODs.  At present, the project consists of a set of ten or so more or less advanced specifications and there is a very active community working on several implementations. However, some fields are not yet covered, such as the querying of these distributed data.

Our aim is to design and evaluate methods for searching and querying distributed data in a Solid ecosystem.  The ability to perform advanced searches on large volumes of data with acceptable performance is one of the foundations of information flow and the construction of social applications.  We are investigating possible solutions to build on top of the Solid architecture capabilities for service discovery and path-finding and access to distributed datasets, by standardising the search and filtering capabilities of PODs. We are considering SPARQL traversal or decentralised query approaches to design a pilot architecture that also meets the performance challenges, for example via cache or index systems. This would allow us to support the diffusion of the Solid ecosystem on a web scale and demonstrate the deployment of real applications based on Solid.

Existing tools and first development

Solid rely on two complementary protocols that both address interoperability for web applications: the client-to-server standard and a client-to-client standard. The first one defines a set of universal rules and acts as a frame for the second which focuses on domain specific concerns. Search and discovery of data might be part of one or another protocol or both.

When we think about searching and discovering data the first idea that arises is indexing. An index is like the contact application on our phone. Using this app, it is very easy to find the number of the person we want to call given its name. Without this kind of index, we would have to find the number by browsing every number in our phone until we find the good one. While this is a very long and tiring process for an human, a machine would be faster but it would still take too long for large amount of data, like a huge public directory for instance. Indexing is a solution to make searching and discovering much faster.

Currently the only way of doing indexing in Solid is through the client-to-client standards. There is no indexing rules defined in the scope of the Solid client-to-server standard. One of the reason might be that the way of indexing things can be very specific and complex. Indeed, think of one application that wants to index real estate ads using complex criteria and calculations. Indexing in the client-to-server area would require a universal solution able to express the wide variety of indexing possibilities and provide a mechanism to the applications to let them know how to use the different indexes that have been created.

The TypeIndex project is the only active proposal for indexing data, whatever their nature. It only allows, at this time, to index data by their type. With TypeIndex you can tell for instance where some of your contacts or some of your movies can be found on your storage. The proposal lets us provide a public type index that everybody can use and a private type index for restricted access use only (owner or granted agents).

Such are the starting points we intend to evaluate and extend in this collaboration with the goal of supporting traversal query processing of Solid ecosystems.

Authors: Maxime Lecoq-Gaillard, Pierre-Antoine Champin, Benoît Alessandroni, Fabien Gandon.

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate announced that three startups, Transmute, mesur.io, and Neoflow, have successfully completed real-time tests based on standards for exchanging supply chain data with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.. The significance of this achievement extends beyond the borders of the United States as they have implemented technologies compliant with the Verifiable Credential Data Model (VCDM) of the World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Linked Data (JSON-LD), and Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) from the W3C.

This is excellent news for Startin’blox, which sees the U.S. Department of Homeland Security using the same data standards as the French startup, actively working on data interoperability. The use of the Verifiable Credential Data Model (VCDM) is a key element, as it enables the verification of data reliability. Linked Data in the JSON-LD format plays an essential role by providing an API format for data exchange. Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) are highlighted for authenticating users within a peer-to-peer ecosystem, an essential feature for data spaces where users can have their user account on the server that they trust.

It’s also a victory to see that Data Spaces are a global movement, extending well beyond the borders of the European Union. This trend resonates with similar initiatives, such as Beckn in India, and the work carried out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). We are living in exciting times as the data interoperability market experiences significant growth, offering numerous opportunities for Startin’blox and offering always more Data Sharing opportunities for companies.

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In a quest to gain a comprehensive understanding of data spaces, their main players, and their future trajectory, our team has been actively engaging with key actors in the dataspace ecosystem. As part of this endeavor, our COO Louis recently conducted a captivating interview with Nina Popanton. In this second post in a series of three, we explore the Green Data Hub (GDH), a project initiated by the Data Intelligence Initiative (DIO) in Austria. The GDH aims to create diverse use cases and connect stakeholders from various industries within the dataspace concept. We spoke with Nina Popanton, who participated in setting up the Green Data Hub, to gain insights into the purpose of the project, its stakeholders, and the matchmaking efforts involved.

Louis Cousin: You were part of setting up the GDH. Can you tell us about it and what you were doing and its purpose within the dataspace ?

Nina Popanton: The Green Data Hub, initiated by the Data Intelligence Initiative, focuses on the four action fields of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Mobility, Energy, Innovation, and Technology (BMK). Its purpose is to bring together stakeholders from various industries to co-create diverse use cases. The use cases focus on four key themes: energy transition, mobility transition, circular economy and digital twin. The goal is to create four data spaces in these fields to generate added value for the entire economic landscape of Austria and Europe. The project supports stakeholders (research institutions, public bodies, economic players) throughout the initiation phase, aiming to address pain points and find common ground for collaborative use cases. 

LC: Is the Green Data Hub exclusively led by the government?

NP: The Green Data Hub is governmentally initiated and provided with project-based financing via FFG, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency. However, it also receives non-financial support from major economic players who participate in the use cases. Research partners collaborate to gather valuable findings from this novel approach.

LC: interested in participating in the Green Data Hub?

NP: The interest in participating varies among companies. In many cases, top-level management, such as Chief Information Officers (CIO) or Chief Data Officers (CDO), recognize the potential value of collaborative data usage and the need for data-driven use cases. Innovation managers and individuals with diverse roles also show interest. The aim is to involve all stakeholders and ensure everyone is on board to avoid project failure due to lack of support from top-level management.

LC: How do you work together?

 NP: Matchmaking is a major endeavor in the Green Data Hub. The GDH team facilitates connections between companies and institutions that require specific data and those that possess it. The goal is to ensure that all participants and institutions benefit from these connections. The vision is not only to utilize existing data but also to find ways to monetize it. The Green Data Hub works towards creating value for all stakeholders involved.

LC:  How do you make this match happen?

NP: In the case of the Green Data Hub, matchmaking involves a classical networking approach. DIO working in the GHD has a deep understanding of their members, their fields, and what they can offer or require. They make efforts to match companies and institutions based on their needs and capabilities. Additionally, they provide support through data stewards who assist in creating and maintaining data documentation.

LC: Did the organizations commit to the matchmaking process?

NP: Yes, the organizations involved in the Green Data Hub committed to the matchmaking process. When required by stakeholders, the team provided guidance and assistance to ensure their data was properly prepared and aligned with the requirements of data spaces.LC: Thank you, Nina, for your insights and for sharing your experience in the data space ecosystem. It’s been really informative and interesting to hear about your work.

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“Leading data spaces: the example of T-Systems” – In a quest to gain a comprehensive understanding of data spaces, their main players, and their future trajectory, our team has been actively engaging with key actors in the dataspace ecosystem. As part of this endeavor, our COO Louis recently conducted a captivating interview with Nina Popanton.In this third post (see “What is a dataspace?” and “What is the Green Data Hub?”) we explore the role of T-Systems in the dataspace landscape and its approach to facilitating data spaces. Our guest provides insights into T-Systems’ involvement in the Catena-X dataspace ecosystem and their efforts to expand globally while maintaining European values.

Louis Cousin: What is the relation between T-Systems and data spaces?

Nina Popanton: T-Systems is one of the subsidiaries of Deutsche Telekom, a leading telecom operator in Germany. They offer a range of services and products, including the Data Intelligence Hub and its products. During my work in Austria, we collaborated with software providers and intermediaries to enable companies to participate in the data space ecosystem. The Data Intelligence Hub, which provides – among many other products – a connector based on the Eclipse Data Space (EDC) components, is a highly innovative solution that can be customized for both small and large companies. T-Systems play a crucial role in entering and governing within the dataspace landscape, making it easy to participate for companies of all sizes, from SMEs to middle-sized and large companies. Access to dataspaces is essential for all players in the value chain  to be able to derive outcomes – like services and applications – from the activity in data ecosystems.

LC: So in practice, what does T-Systems do?

NP: T-Systems is one of the main technology providers for Catena-X, the first collaborative, open data ecosystem for the automotive industry. Additionally, T-Systems offers its wide ranging products on the platform of Catena’s operating company, Cofinity-X. However, our focus is not limited to Germany and Europe alone. The Data Intelligence Hub is collaborating with international companies to involve players from the U.S. or Chinese value chain in the dataspace ecosystem while upholding European values from initiatives such as Gaia-X and IDSA.

LC: So T-Systems is building its value proposition for dataspaces. Where are they in terms of already having a marketable product, or is it still in the development phase?

NP: The Data Intelligence Hub has fully advanced products (Connect, LivingLab, Digital.ID, Motion Data) that can be bought and used by companies. Clients can for example acquire the Data Intelligence Hub Connect product to enter the dataspace ecosystem or the LivingLab to build their business applications in a sandbox environment. With Digital.ID as one of the first implementations of the Gaia-X Digital Clearing House (GXDCH), T-Systems provides a one-stop shop for anyone seeking to be part of this ecosystem.

LC : Thank you, Nina. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors with T-Systems and the development of dataspaces.

NP : Thank you so much for having me!

Want to know more about T-Systems and data spaces? See the documentation about its Data Intelligence Hub, DIH Advisory accelerator packages, DIH Connect Products, DIH Digital ID features.

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In a quest to gain a comprehensive understanding of data spaces, their main players, and their future trajectory, our team has been actively engaging with key actors in the data space ecosystem. As part of this endeavor, our COO Louis, recently conducted a captivating interview with Nina Popanton. This post marks the first installment in a series of three, offering an insightful introduction to the broader landscape of data spaces in Europe. By delving into general reflections on the topic, the interview lays the groundwork for deeper exploration and sheds light on the evolving nature of data spaces in the region.

Louis Cousin: Can you tell us who you are and what you do with data spaces?

Nina Popanton: For a few years I am deeply involved in the data ecosystem in Europe, until recently I have been team lead of the Data Intelligence Initiative (DIO) in Austria and have developed and co-created use cases for data spaces with our network. In terms of my academic background, I’m a development researcher, which is why I approach things from a macroeconomic perspective. Just recently, I have started my new chapter as business developer for the Telekom Data Intelligence Hub (T-Systems International).

LC: You’ve been working in this ecosystem for a few years now..?

NP: I entered this ecosystem about three years ago, coming from a completely different profession. I used to consult stock exchange-listed companies and the real estate sector in their public positioning and communications. Anyways, I think that helped me to dive into the topic – I believe, specifically such companies will play a significant role in data-driven innovation.

LC: How would you describe a data space? 

NP: To me, data spaces represent a federated data exchange network where companies can share data along various supply chains and value chains. What’s important to me is that we’ve discovered a new way of sharing data, not just one-to-one, but one-to-many or even many-to-many. That’s the significant innovation surrounding dataspaces.

LC: Why are data spaces important?

NP: I believe the significance lies in the fact that many inefficiencies that existed before can now be a thing of the past. Take supply chains, for example : in industries like manufacturing, we can now have visibility and control not only over the first and second tiers, but up to six, seven or even more tiers. This allows to identify and address quality issues from the very beginning, rather than just realizing after receiving the final product. Thus, the economy becomes more efficient, quality-focused, and agile.

LC: What types of industries are involved in this ecosystem?  

NP: That’s a great question with multiple aspects. Initially, like many innovations, data spaces emerged from research. However, what’s exciting about dataspaces is that it benefits not just one industry, but every sector of our economy that deals with data – which is literally every sector. Data has become a central resource across industries, whether it is manufacturing, energy, mobility, and many more. Data is omnipresent.

LC: Are data spaces meant only for businesses?

NP: While businesses naturally benefit from dataspaces by reducing inefficiencies, it is not limited to them. Governments, public bodies, and other stakeholders can also reap the rewards. It is crucial for economic players to collaborate with political players to support in shaping related regulations that allow us to fully exploit the potential of data spaces.

LC: Thank you, Nina, for your insights and for sharing your experience in the data space ecosystem. It’s been really informative and interesting to hear about your work. 

NP : Thank you so much for having me.

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