On the 4^th of June BDVA attended the “Ministerial talk and GAIA-X virtual expert forum”, organised jointly as a Franco-German event, which officially launched the GAIA-X initiative for the establishment of a federated data infrastructure for Europe. 

BDVA welcomes the establishment of this initiative and looks forward to collaborating with GAIA-X in order to enable further innovation through enhanced data sharing and exchange in Europe.

The Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition has recently recognised BDVA and the BDV PPP's action and support in tackling the digital skills gap. To mark this recognition BDVA has been granted a badge as a demonstration ot the commitment to boost digital skills in Europe, in particular for the contribution of the BDVe EduHub (http://bigdataprofessional.eu/).

The Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition brings together Member States, companies, social partners, non-profit organisations and education providers, who take action to tackle the lack of digital skills in Europe. BDVA has been a member of the Coalition since December 1st, 2017.

The call for BDVA Data i-Spaces labels 2020 has been recently launched for the fifth consecutive year. The labelling process implies that relevant information from the candidates will be gathered by an online questionnaire, and a review committee will examine individual candidates and recommend the appropriate quality ranking.

This review committee is expected to include experts in the different dimensions covered by the i-Spaces, among BDVA members and other strategic partners. BDVA opens now and until June 15^th a call to receive expressions of interests of individuals interested in being part of this labelling committee.

BDVA organised in collaboration with the BDVe project a webinar on "ICT Standards and Innovation" on May 19th 10am CEST. The organisation of this webinar was led by the BDVA TF6.SG6 (Standards) and the BDVA TF8.SG1 (Business-SMEs). The webinar combined an introductory part on ICT Standards and Standardisation with a deep dive for SMEs. Presentations and video are available.

Has your organisation participated in any kind of data exchange or sharing activities with strategic partners? Regardless of whether you represent a business, research institution, governmental or non-governmental organisation your input is very valuable! 

Participate in the 12-minute BDVA Data Sharing Experiences Survey here. 

This survey has been created by the BDVA TF1.SG7 in collaboration with other Task Forces and the EC. Results of this survey will be shared in the second version of the BDVA paper "Towards a European Data Sharing Space".

On May 5^th 2020, BDVA organised, in collaboration with ETP4HPC and the European Commission, an online workshop to analyse in depth the challenges, limitations and longer term perspectives of the Large Scale Pilot actions that are currently being developed in the context of the ICT-11-2018-2019 calls. Based on this analysis, the aim is to outline future research and innovation needs in terms of convergence and alignment of the basic technologies and their utilization in industry and specially SMEs.

BDVA organises, with the support of GO FAiR, CODATA and the Philips Foundation, a webinar on April 29th at 14h CEST to raise more awareness about the VODAN Implementation network. The purpose of the Implementation Network is to make the SARS CoV-2 virus data FAIR, meaning that they are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and thus Reusable by both humans and machines, during this epidemic of COVID-19. 

Aim of the project is to build an Industrial Geospatial Data Marketplace for Europe, that shall be a central hub for geospatial data that guarantees affordability and flexibility in line with the needs of all users regardless of their size, domain, and expertise. Our vision is a breakthrough in the trading and sharing of commercial geospatial data assets in a cross-border and cross-sector setting following the goal to implement Europe’s Data Economy.