On November 28th, 2017, the Industrial Data Space Association (IDSA) and its Spanish counterpart, the Industria Conectada 4.0 Initiative, came together during the FIWARE Tech Summit in Malaga, Spain to discuss recent developments and to understand what kind of projects can be devised driving collaboration between the initiatives.

IDSA “supports the secure exchange and simple linking of data in business ecosystems on the basis of standards and by using collaborative governance models”, making it a key player in the creation of a space where data is shared in a decentralized manner and, in turn, in making the Data Economy a reality.

During the event, we spoke to Sergio Gusmeroli, Research Coordinator at Politecnico di Milano. He shared that a reference architecture inspired by the Industrial Data Space reference architecture is needed. One that is “implemented by Open Source tools, […] the FIWARE tools”. Mr. Gusmeroli went on to discuss a main scenario that needs to be covered: the “Smart Factory scenario”. This involves getting “data from the production plant though the Orion Context Broker […] and then [analysing] this data in order to perform advanced analytics and advanced elaboration of the data coming from the plant”.

In turn, Ulrich Graugovel, CMO at Data Ahead GmbH, in his interview, stated that they “have chosen IDSA and FIWARE as the initiatives, which appear to [them] as the most fruitful ones to provide de facto standards in the future”. He goes on to suggest that “a good understanding of data democracy is provided best in [IDSA and FIWARE]”.

To watch the interviews with Sergio Gusmeroli and Ulrich Graugovel please visit the FIWARE Youtube page.