Activities were complemented by regular conference calls involving BDVA and the EC, and the participation to events from adjacent communities (e.g. IoT, ECSO, AI4EU, euRobotics, and AI) where Big Data is needed as part of their innovation chain. The involvement of major industrials and practitioners in our flagship events complemented our global vision; and were instrumental for the enhancement of the SRIA, the set of documents published – including a series on policies - but also the contribution to the launch of the AI, Data and Robotics PPP activity in Fall 2018.
We extended the reach of the BDV PPP ecosystem to other communities and actively participated to the launch of activities related to Data-driven AI. Collaboration with other initiatives has been part of the DNA of the BDV PPP: formal agreements have been signed with relevant PPP and industrial associations like ETP4HPC, ECSO, EFFRA, 5G, and soon with standardisation bodies CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. These collaborations materialised in sound activities, like joint sessions in major events such as ICT2018 but also the presence in other initiatives (e.g. IoT week, European Robotics Forum); equally, we have used our community events (EBDVF and Summit) to invite them to talk to the BDV PPP ecosystem. Standardisation effort was also an important avenue for creating the BDVA Roadmap for Big Data Standards.
To stimulate the adoption of Big Data across all Europe, we organised the BDV PPP Summit where our ecosystem has a lower footprint incl. Bulgaria, Latvia and virtual Portugal, involving high-level keynotes such as Commissioner Mariya Gabriel (European Commission), Ms Melbārde (Member of European Parliament), Mr Beļskis (Deputy State Secretary ICT, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development). Within EBDVF, our flagship event with 800 attendees per year organised in Versailles (2017), Vienna (2018) and Helsinki (2019) and 2000 participants to our virtual Berlin in 2020. We secured the participation of prestigious representatives from government (e.g. Ministers, Secretaries of State, or representatives from the European Commission), from industry with C-level executives (e.g. Airbus, EDF, Microsoft, SAP, Siemens, Vodafone) and the research and innovation communities (e.g. INRIA, VTT, Max Planck Institute) that gave a unique flavour of expertise, research insights and real-life usage of Big Data technology. We organised sessions dedicated to regional and European strategy with speakers from almost all European Countries. In the skill-building and education area we engaged withthe Ideal-IST network of National Contact Points for ICT and the BDV Education Hub with training programmes in Big Data and AI was recognised as a pledge by the European Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition.
Finally, the involvement of SMEs and start-ups was polymorph: we participated in several events involving companies from the BDV PPP ecosystem and dedicated an EBDVF2020 track on “Market uptake: Bringing AI and Data Sciences to Practice“ including a DDI workshop and a pitch contest organised with EDI and Data Market Services. Finally, to promote start-ups and SMEs we decided to add a category “Start-up and SME” to the best Success Story Award.
Bilateral discussions and periodic interactions with other initiatives were instrumental to create awareness about our actions and reduce fragmentation of discussions about the data economy such as Research for Data Alliance and the Center for Data Innovation. INSIGHT played a leading role in the development of the Network of Centres of Excellence, with studies and publication of best practices, inclusion of AI topics, the case studies of 3 Centres of Excellence and the interviews of 15+ CoE managers to provide a comprehensive vade-mecum. The GATE CoE - the first Big Data CoE in Bulgaria, with INSIGHT serving on the Advisory Board - formally established in 2019 highlights BDVe role. For the first year of its operation, we co-organised the annual GATE Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Forum.
