Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LEDGER (decentraLizEd Data Governance for nExt geneRation internet)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2020-02-01 do 2022-01-31
LEDGER (DecentraLizEd Data Governance for nExt geneRation internet) had an ambitious vision to shift data management, stimulating and developing the conditions for the birth of economic, regulatory, and technical alternative models that preserve citizens digital sovereignty, where data is a common good owned by citizens and wealth created by data-driven platforms is equally distributed. Its main goal was to support Human-centric Innovators (SMEs, start-ups, and Researchers) taking research contributions and technologies from the DECODE experimental framework, to develop Minimum Viable Products and services linked to relevant Vertical Use Cases addressing data sovereignty, privacy-by-design, decentralised data governance, reliability, trustworthiness, and openness as core values while leveraging on decentralised technologies and algorithms.
After 39 months of the project lifetime, it is certain that the goal was achieved successfully, although it should be seen as one of many pioneering efforts within the wider NGI initiative towards shifting data management to a more human-centric internet model based on European values.
LEDGER’s impact is promising, having not only produced a set of relevant use cases, success stories and a thriving community around the project and its outcomes but more importantly, awareness across European stakeholders in the subject area, public and private, about its ‘MVP Builder For Human-Centric Solutions’ approach and the need to carry on exploring and supporting the creation of new models that preserve citizens’ control over the management of their data, ensuring data sovereignty and eliminating concentration of data in a few proprietary platforms.
After 39 months of the project lifetime, it is certain that the goal was achieved successfully, although it should be seen as one of many pioneering efforts within the wider NGI initiative towards shifting data management to a more human-centric internet model based on European values.
LEDGER’s impact is promising, having not only produced a set of relevant use cases, success stories and a thriving community around the project and its outcomes but more importantly, awareness across European stakeholders in the subject area, public and private, about its ‘MVP Builder For Human-Centric Solutions’ approach and the need to carry on exploring and supporting the creation of new models that preserve citizens’ control over the management of their data, ensuring data sovereignty and eliminating concentration of data in a few proprietary platforms.
To implement this approach, 3 open calls for respectively 3 MVP Builder support programmes were launched, resulting in 2641 started applications, of which 725 applications were submitted from 39 different countries. Aside from the phenomenal open call participation numbers, a +50K contacts database, a +1000 members strong online community and equally strong Twitter following were built.
34 open-source and privacy-enhancing projects, 16 in the first, 9 in the second, and 9 in the third round were selected via a multilayered selection process based on a funnel approach geared towards finding and selecting the best proposals for LEDGER.
During the 3 MVP Builder Programmes all beneficiaries received state-of-the-art support and access to technology and decentralisation knowledge provided by the researchers in residence. Each of the 34 beneficiaries was assigned a Technical and Business Mentor, who worked with them on a regular basis. Continuous improvements in the programme management were achieved by the constant implementation of lessons learned from the different programmes. As a result, 33 MVPs and 63 open-source repositories are publicly available on LEDGER’s GitHub profile. In the first two rounds, technical developments concluded with the MVP and business cases delivery of each of the beneficiaries. Those with the highest potential were selected to join a 3-month Business Ignition. The significantly shorter third programme (6 instead of 12 months) provided the Business Ignition service throughout its entirety. Overall 20 market-tested MVPs and business plans were generated in the process through which over 500 interviews were conducted by the beneficiaries, contributing to better meeting market interest.
Paving the way for sustainability of the beneficiaries, they were connected with investors, corporates and other stakeholders within the respective vertical cluster domains via business acceleration activities like the demo day brokerage events, interviews and matchmaking aimed at generating access to market. A LEDGER Innovators Profile section was created on the project website and online community, and they were included in the official NGI Solutions Discovery Tool. Results of these activities include among others, one representative use-case per 5 LEDGER verticals by beneficiaries from all 3 cohorts, namely SafePKT, Usody, GeneCoop, Unified Science and Orvium.
In direct relation to their LEDGER participation, 108 jobs were created, 127 partnerships formed and 17 awards won, e.g.second cohort beneficiaries Orvium and Global Passport Project won the Blockchain Venture Day Starter and Social Good Awards respectively and 3 first cohort beneficiaries (Unified Science and Merits; ECP) won the EIC Blockchain 4 Social Good Prize awarded with 1M€. Throughout LEDGER, a total of 5,35M€ public funding was awarded to the 34 beneficiaries. At the time of writing, LEDGER beneficiaries had been able to raise overall an additional 1,26M€ public and 20,4M€ private funding.
34 open-source and privacy-enhancing projects, 16 in the first, 9 in the second, and 9 in the third round were selected via a multilayered selection process based on a funnel approach geared towards finding and selecting the best proposals for LEDGER.
During the 3 MVP Builder Programmes all beneficiaries received state-of-the-art support and access to technology and decentralisation knowledge provided by the researchers in residence. Each of the 34 beneficiaries was assigned a Technical and Business Mentor, who worked with them on a regular basis. Continuous improvements in the programme management were achieved by the constant implementation of lessons learned from the different programmes. As a result, 33 MVPs and 63 open-source repositories are publicly available on LEDGER’s GitHub profile. In the first two rounds, technical developments concluded with the MVP and business cases delivery of each of the beneficiaries. Those with the highest potential were selected to join a 3-month Business Ignition. The significantly shorter third programme (6 instead of 12 months) provided the Business Ignition service throughout its entirety. Overall 20 market-tested MVPs and business plans were generated in the process through which over 500 interviews were conducted by the beneficiaries, contributing to better meeting market interest.
Paving the way for sustainability of the beneficiaries, they were connected with investors, corporates and other stakeholders within the respective vertical cluster domains via business acceleration activities like the demo day brokerage events, interviews and matchmaking aimed at generating access to market. A LEDGER Innovators Profile section was created on the project website and online community, and they were included in the official NGI Solutions Discovery Tool. Results of these activities include among others, one representative use-case per 5 LEDGER verticals by beneficiaries from all 3 cohorts, namely SafePKT, Usody, GeneCoop, Unified Science and Orvium.
In direct relation to their LEDGER participation, 108 jobs were created, 127 partnerships formed and 17 awards won, e.g.second cohort beneficiaries Orvium and Global Passport Project won the Blockchain Venture Day Starter and Social Good Awards respectively and 3 first cohort beneficiaries (Unified Science and Merits; ECP) won the EIC Blockchain 4 Social Good Prize awarded with 1M€. Throughout LEDGER, a total of 5,35M€ public funding was awarded to the 34 beneficiaries. At the time of writing, LEDGER beneficiaries had been able to raise overall an additional 1,26M€ public and 20,4M€ private funding.
LEDGER’s sustainability including potential future replications of the MVP Builder Programme model was explored, gathering meaningful feedback via a survey directed to industrial actors on their perception of the impact decentralised technologies like blockchain could have on their businesses, and engaging private investors and corporate representatives about the perceived added-value DLT technologies had in LEDGER's key verticals.
Potential targets were further engaged via community and awareness-building activities including 3 open call campaigns, specific events participations or organisations like webinars on sustainability with high profile speakers or 2 Demo Day Brokerage events, which aside from showcasing and brokering directly LEDGER beneficiaries and the project’s MVP Venture Builder model, focusing on raising awareness for the positive social and environmental impact these innovations can have on our economies. Impact Week 2021 and Blockchain Venture Day 2021 counted with the participation of governing bodies, the private investment community, corporates and institutional actors including INATBA, who has ongoing discussions with LEDGER about its potential Venture Builder model replication. As a result of these activities and overall discussions in the ecosystem, the European Blockchain Investor Task Force was formed by 5 investors to explore how Blockchain and DLT are funded in Europe, meet NGI beneficiaries and devise a strategy to benefit the entire ecosystem. This work resulted in the publishing of a manifesto destined to European institutions, the EC, the European Investment Fund (EIF), and investor community, titled: Boosting Europe’s Sovereignty via Blockchain and DLT.
Finally, the LEDGER project produced a ‘Public Funding Digital Thread’ based on DLT technologies via a use case based on the FundingBox platform for Open Call Management, which is aimed at providing public organisations with a toolkit for more transparency and accuracy in the context of the management of Public Funding for innovation, backing up reception, evaluation and follow-up of applications. These corresponding open-source software components developed during LEDGER were implemented in the 3 Open Calls and are publicly available on LEDGER’s GitHub workspace and is further described in the project’s DLT-framework for grant distribution toolkit report alongside a set of methodologies, best practices and lessons learned during the 3 editions of LEDGER’s MVP Builder for Human-centric Solutions, as well as a benchmarking exercise. The goal of this toolkit is to enable future integration of the described elements and learnings in the distribution of alternative funding instruments by public authorities or third parties.
Potential targets were further engaged via community and awareness-building activities including 3 open call campaigns, specific events participations or organisations like webinars on sustainability with high profile speakers or 2 Demo Day Brokerage events, which aside from showcasing and brokering directly LEDGER beneficiaries and the project’s MVP Venture Builder model, focusing on raising awareness for the positive social and environmental impact these innovations can have on our economies. Impact Week 2021 and Blockchain Venture Day 2021 counted with the participation of governing bodies, the private investment community, corporates and institutional actors including INATBA, who has ongoing discussions with LEDGER about its potential Venture Builder model replication. As a result of these activities and overall discussions in the ecosystem, the European Blockchain Investor Task Force was formed by 5 investors to explore how Blockchain and DLT are funded in Europe, meet NGI beneficiaries and devise a strategy to benefit the entire ecosystem. This work resulted in the publishing of a manifesto destined to European institutions, the EC, the European Investment Fund (EIF), and investor community, titled: Boosting Europe’s Sovereignty via Blockchain and DLT.
Finally, the LEDGER project produced a ‘Public Funding Digital Thread’ based on DLT technologies via a use case based on the FundingBox platform for Open Call Management, which is aimed at providing public organisations with a toolkit for more transparency and accuracy in the context of the management of Public Funding for innovation, backing up reception, evaluation and follow-up of applications. These corresponding open-source software components developed during LEDGER were implemented in the 3 Open Calls and are publicly available on LEDGER’s GitHub workspace and is further described in the project’s DLT-framework for grant distribution toolkit report alongside a set of methodologies, best practices and lessons learned during the 3 editions of LEDGER’s MVP Builder for Human-centric Solutions, as well as a benchmarking exercise. The goal of this toolkit is to enable future integration of the described elements and learnings in the distribution of alternative funding instruments by public authorities or third parties.