BrazilConsultancies support Europe's ambition for data spaces
A new coalition of leading European data sharing players has launched, with the aim of advancing EU’s data strategy. Two management consulting firms are among the thirteen founding members.
The coalition – Team Data Spaces – looks to realise the value of data sharing in innovation, tech advancement and broader economic development across Europe. The goal is to create a single market for data – shared by businesses, government and people alike, and regulated with strict protocols on privacy and security.
Behind such a simple, common data source would be a complex web of technological, financial and legal considerations – and Team Data Spaces has expertise across these fields in its ranks. The International Data Spaces Association, TNO, mydata.org, VTT are all among the wide range of business, government and NGO representatives in the coalition, which also includes consultancies Capgemini Invent and Innopay.
“Data spaces will deliver benefits for a multitude of European stakeholders – including individual citizens and both private and public organisations – by delivering significant societal, environmental and economic value to society at large,” reads a statement.
“They will create a level playing field for data sharing. They will encourage more innovative uses and combinations of data. And they will also be a key enabler for the European AI strategy which relies on access to large volumes of often decentralised high-quality data.”
Both consultancies are experts in data strategy and have long been advocates of the data sharing notion. Digital transformation specialist Capgemini Invent has been collaborating with the European Commission on open data spaces since 2015 – tapped to set up the European Support Centre for Data Sharing in 2019, and to lead a team of companies in building a single database of European data earlier this year.
Amsterdam-based Innopay is specialised in digital identity and data sharing – spanning applications across banking, payments and business. The firm holds an annual seminar called Data Sharing Days – where data experts from across Europe lend their knowledge to further the much-valued data sharing agenda across the continent.
The pair will now work with Team Data Spaces to kick off the first steps on the agenda, which include setting up a data sharing community; encouraging adoption of supporting infrastructure towards a shared platform; developing a common roadmap for the way forward; and building a framework to shore up the legal and ethical variables of the initiative.
