Day 1: The Core of Gaia-X
The summit’s day one kicked off with a focus on global collaboration and the future of digital ecosystems.
The opening keynotes explored how fostering cooperation across borders can lead to new paradigms in data sharing and digital infrastructures.
Next, the spotlight shifted to the Gaia-X Journey 2024 & Roadmap 2025, outlining the upcoming milestones in Gaia-X’s evolution.
The agenda continued with a focus on Gaia-X Compliance & Label, highlighting the two-layered approaches for interoperability that Gaia-X covers: Legal and Organisational with the Gaia-X Compliance Document; Semantic and Technical with the Gaia-X Architecture Document.
Following this, the Gaia-X Trust Framework session highlighted how to create secure, interoperable data-infrastructure ecosystems by emphasising the need for trust and interoperability across digital platforms and how this can be automated.
Gaia-X Voices featured use case testimonials from Data Space Projects, offering real-world examples of how Gaia-X’s framework is being implemented across various sectors. These testimonials provided valuable insights into the practical benefits of Gaia-X’s approach.
To close out the first day, a session on Driving Business Impact through Collaboration highlighted the role of Cloud Service Providers & Clearing Houses in advancing business efficiency and innovation through collaborative data ecosystems.
Lastly, the day wrapped up with insights into the role of the Data Space Orchestrator, which is crucial for managing and coordinating data space activities within data-sharing ecosystems.
This full day of keynotes, case studies, and interactive sessions set a strong foundation for the summit, focusing on collaboration, trust, and innovation in the digital space.
Day 2: Advancing Data-sharing and Collaboration
Day two of the summit focused on the economic and strategic aspects of data-sharing, starting with insights from the Gaia-X Institute on the economics of data-sharing and the concept of automated compliance by design.
The agenda then shifted to Nordic-Baltic Perspectives, exploring regional approaches to data-sharing and innovation in the digital ecosystem.
A focus on Gaia-X Hubs followed, discussing how local hubs can play a critical role in promoting Gaia-X Market Adoption at the national and local levels. In addition to the 16 European Hubs and the 5 International Hubs, Gaia-X expanded its presence by announcing three new Hubs (Norway, Denmark, and Switzerland).
The program then broadened its scope to address globalisation and its impact on the digital ecosystem, presenting the successful deployment of a test bed for a Gaia-X Digital Clearing House in Japan. This milestone marks the first implementation of a Digital Clearing House outside of Europe, highlighting the association’s commitment to its globalisation strategy and fostering international collaborations.
The day then addressed the theme of Maximizing Synergies, highlighting the collaboration between Data Spaces Business Alliance (DSBA), Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC), and Simpl to create a unified framework for data spaces, ensuring smoother interoperability across ecosystems through standards’ convergence.
The afternoon covered Driving Transformation, focusing on how the European Data Strategy aligns with Gaia-X to propel digital innovation and governance across Europe.
The final day of the Gaia-X Summit wrapped up with Closing Remarks, summarising the key takeaways and setting the direction for future collaboration and implementation.
The Economic Theatre was hosted by Gaia-X Institute and Paris Dauphine University, this theatre invited participants to submit their Data Space Economy Use Cases to have their project evaluated using the economic model developed by Paris Dauphine University, which separates the roles of participants and orchestrators within data-sharing ecosystems.
The Tech Theatre provided an in-depth look into the technical foundations of Gaia-X. Starting with Gaia-X 101, participants explored the technical fundamentals and architecture. Sessions covered key topics like Navigating the Loire Release and Secure Credential Sharing with OID4VC.
The OpenWallet Foundation discussed digital wallets, while the GXDCH Q&A discussed the next version of the Gaia-X Digital Clearing House components, codename Loire, and showed how to start getting compliance following the Gaia-X Compliance Document 2406.
The Gaia-X Ontology session explained how one can gain a common (domain-specific) language to describe services, infrastructure and participants in Gaia-X.
The day closed with an Open Discussion/Q&A session, allowing attendees to engage directly with the Gaia-X Tech Team.
Watch all the Gaia-X 2024 Helsinki Summit videos here
