On June 19th-20th 2018 BDVA organised its 27th Activity Group meeting attracting over 60 participants from BDVA members, the European Commission and other stakeholders. 7 different sessions were organised covering topics such as Data Privacy/Protection, Data-driven EC Data Package, AI, IoT and Big Data, Big Data in Smart Manufacturing Industries, Big Data and Healthcare, Data i-Spaces and DIHs and Algorithm Transparency. The sessions were complemented  with several pitching sessions, brokering and networking opportunities.

The Big Data Value PPP had a very active participation in the IoTWeek 2018, that took place in Bilbao from 4th to 7th of June.

On June 19th 2018 the 9th Parnership Board of the Big Data Value PPP took place in Brussels bringing together the European Commission and BDVA to review status and progress of the PPP implementation. The BDV PPP Partnership Board meeting also covered important strategic aspects of the PPP such as the recently launched European Data Package, Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes, Artificial Intelligence, EuroHPC and the Digital Innovation Hubs for Big Data. Special attention was given to the collaborations that BDVA and the BDV PPP are developing with other PPPs and European partnerships such as euRobotics, EIT Digital, ECSO, ETP4HPC, AITOI and EFFRA.

The European Commission announced last June 14^th the list of appointed experts for the High Level Group in AI. The Big Data Value Association (BDVA) is represented in the HLEG on AI by Nozha Boujemaa.

The European Commission launched last June 14th the Artificial Intelligence Alliance, a forum to engage all relevant stakeholders in a broad and open discussion of all aspects of Artificial Intelligence development and its impacts.

The first Big Data Value Meetup, a 3 days event organized in Sofia (Bulgaria) in May 2018 by the Big Data Value Association, BDVe project and Mozaika, gathered the European Big Data community to discuss and exchange thoughts, ideas and insights about the present and the future of the data driven economy.

The short papers (2-3 pages average length. 4 pages max. length) submission deadline for the BDVA Workshop on Software Architecture Challenges in Big Data - SACBD@ECSA2018 has been extended until June 21st 2018.

The SynchroniCity open call launches June 1st 17:00 CEST and closes September 30th 17:00 CEST. The project has 3 million Euro for the Open Call that will be distributed essentially among SMEs/startups, but cities and big companies are also entitled to participate under certain conditions