Congratulations to the appointed Directors 

• Freek Bomhof – TNO, Netherlands 

• Edward Curry – Insight Centre, Ireland 

• Davide Dalle Carbonare – Engineering, Italy 

• Valerio Frascolla – Intel, Germany 

• Stefan Gessler – NEC Laboratories, Germany 

• Jozef Geurts – Inria, France 

• Thomas Hahn – Siemens, Germany 

• Michalis Kefalogiannis – Cosmote Telecom – OTE Group, Greece 

• Laure Le Bars – SAP Technology & Innovation, France 

• Till Lech – SINTEF, Norway 

• Jeanette Nilsson – RISE, Sweden 

• Shane Ó Seasnáin – VITO, Belgium 

• Aljosa Pasic – Eviden, Spain 

• Fernando Perales de Mingo – JOT Internet Media España SL, Spain 

• Antonis Ramfos – Athens Technology Centre, Greece 

• Daniel Saez Domingo – ITI, Spain 

• Joaquín Salvachúa Rodríguez – Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain 

• Robert Seidl – Nokia, Germany 

• Rob Smeets – Philips, Netherlands 

• Richard Stevens – IDC, Italy 

• Tuomo Tuikka – VTT, Finland 

• Stefan Van Baelen – imec, Belgium 

• Andrejs Vasiljevs – Tilde, Latvia 

Together with Dolores Ordóñez – AnySolution, Spain and Fabrice Tocco – Dawex, France the BDVA BoD counts as per today with 25 members (10 Large Entreprises, 5 SMEs and 10 members representing Research and Academia) 

Members were also called to appoint a President and Vice-presidents, renewing the 2-year mandate for Thomas Hahn (Siemens) as President, for Laure Le Bars (SAP) as Vice-President for industry and for Edward Curry (Insight) as Vice-President for research. 

BDVA would like to thank all candidates for these elections!

BDVA would also like to express its gratitude to all the members of the Board who have served over the last few years and will not be continuing: Juan Bernabé-Moreno (IBM), Maria Pérez (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid) and Dominique Grelet (Eviden). We want to thank them for their contributions and dedication.  

The post BDVA Board of Directors Updates appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

Full members:

• Cyfronet (Academia/Research)
• F6S Network (SME)
• KoçDigital (Large Industry)
• Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS) (Other)
• University of Copenhagen (Academia/Research)

Associate members:

• Bloodstone Consulting (SME)
• Cogninn (SME)
• DIHGIGAL (Association)
• FEAK (Other)
• EKSO(SME)
• JRC Capital Management (SME)
• Orcawise (SME)
• Systematika (SME)

We also sadly saw some members leaving, but we are happy to announce that we are keeping a steady net growth over the years, and we are proud to state that the Association is over 250 members.

BDVA members are at the forefront of Europe’s Data and AI economy and together foster excellence in Data and AI research innovation for competitiveness. We want to thank our members, including our newest additions, for their commitment through their dedication, supporting our shared aspirations, contributing to our Task Forces and injecting with content and value our collaborations with other associations and the policy makers.

Find out more about BDVA’s membership

There are two types of membership: Full Members and Associated Members.

• Full Members can participate in all the activities of the Association, have full voting rights and can be elected to be part of the Board of Directors. Full members enjoy all the benefits of the Association.
• Associated Members can participate in the activities of the Association without voting rights.

Membership applications are reviewed and can be provisionally approved by the Board of Directors of BDVA. Final approval of membership is granted by the BDVA General Assembly.

If you have any further questions, please contact us at info@bdva.eu.

Apply for BDVA membership now!

The post Welcome to new BDVA members! appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

The design of data architectures has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. What was once a relatively standardised ETL (extract, transform, load) process linked to a central data warehouse has evolved into a diverse ecosystem of complex frameworks, including data lakehouses, data meshes, data fabrics, data virtualisation and cloud-native models, often deployed in combination.

These modern approaches have emerged to overcome the limitations of traditional systems, particularly when dealing with the challenges of today’s data landscape: vast data volumes, unstructured and multimodal formats, the growing need for real-time processing and demands for scalability and flexibility.

Beyond these technical evolutions, the increasing need to share data across organisations, sectors and borders – to fully unlock its value – has spurred the rise of data spaces, which modern architectures must now be designed to support and connect with. At the same time, the primary application of data is shifting from traditional analytics towards advanced artificial intelligence (AI) workflows, bringing a new set of requirements for data management and infrastructure design.

The BDVA workshop “Evolving data architectures for distributed, intensive, AI-driven applications” (as part of AG71)

Date: 22 October, from 10:00 – 13:00 CEST 

Full agenda :

Objectives of the Session

• Review the current landscape of big data architectures, from established models to cutting-edge approaches.
• Identify and analyse new trends shaping the design of modern data ecosystems.
• Discuss challenges and requirements these architectures must meet, particularly in relation to:

  • Managing massive, unstructured and multimodal data.

  • Supporting real-time and AI-driven workflows.

  • Enabling cross-organisation and cross-sector data sharing through data spaces.

  • Addressing broader issues such as interoperability, governance, standards, security and trust.

• Exchange insights and experiences among BDVA members to better understand adoption pathways, practical barriers and opportunities for collaboration.

This workshop fostered dialogue and collaboration among experts and stakeholders to ensure that Europe’s data architectures remain at the forefront of innovation, supporting trustworthy, interoperable and AI-ready data ecosystems.

The post BDVA workshop on new data architectures appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

AI-ready data: preparing data for AI impact

Date: 27 June, from 10:00 – 13:00 CEST 

Building on previous discussions, workshops, and developments, this session, co-organised with King College London, will bring together diverse expert perspectives to explore key aspects of AI-ready data, including: 

• AI readiness frameworks, as a key step to define methodologies to assess to what extent datasets and data products are prepared for AI.  
• Technical foundations to prepare datasets for their use in AI applications  
• How to extend the concept of data products to cope with AI requirements when bundling data in packages with other elements to make them findable, exchangeable and tradeable in AI environments
• Discuss in the view of real upcoming scenarios like AI Factories and Data Labs
• Identify AI-ready data in real applications and use cases  

The topic is gaining even more attention in view of the recently published AI Continent Action Plan (with a dedicated pillar for “data for AI”), and the prelude of the European Data Union strategy to help the “EU build high-quality, interoperable, and diverse datasets that are necessary for AI” 

The outcomes of this workshop will contribute to advancing BDVA’s ongoing discussion and position papers on the topic, by examining the state of the art, identifying gaps that still prevent AI practitioners from fully harnessing the power and value of data, and supporting their effective integration into data ecosystems, while enabling these ecosystems to become strong catalysts for AI innovation by providing industry-ready solutions designed to meet the complexities and unique demands of cutting-edge AI applications. 

The workshop is initially planned for BDVA members, but if interested, contact us: innovation@bdva.eu 

The post AI-ready data: preparing data for AI impact appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

In 2024, BDVA released an updated Strategic Agenda based on 5 guiding themes that complement each other providing an overall perspective of the community’s ambition and scope:

• Empowering European Industries and society for a human-centric digital future
• Expanding data-driven ecosystems across sectors and global value chains
• Making data and AI innovations fit for emerging infrastructures and platforms
• Sustainable data and AI: enhancing efficiency and resilience while reducing resource demands
• Integrating innovation, ethics and compliance

27 task forces led by member organisations supported and continue to support the implementation of the strategic agenda priorities by connecting knowledge, co-creating new projects, building synergies with results, and providing supporting guidance documents (5 major publications in 2024) and tools for companies and policy makers. A network of 31 federated regional and national data innovation spaces (the i-Spaces) helped connect the European community with the smaller players and innovators all over Europe, offering testing, experimentation, innovation, coaching and educational data and AI services. The Association was managed by 26 Directors throughout 2024, supported by an advisory Technical Board of 16 experts and a talented and multidisciplinary team of 10 professionals that represent the BDVA Office.

BDVA organised regularly online and in-person activities, either internally-focussed, or in collaboration with other communities or the general public, which helped establish collaborations, transferring knowledge, co-creating innovations and connecting with end-users. This has been a truly community effort!

As a private member of the EuroHPC JU, 2024 has also marked an important turning point for BDVA, with the launch of the AI factories as dynamic ecosystems to foster innovation, collaboration, and development in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), bringing together computing power, data, and talent to create cutting-edge AI models and applications. In 2024, BDVA worked closely with potential host organisations of AI factories, data spaces, AI and data specialists to start addressing the data challenge. The first AI factories were announced at the end of 2024.

BDVA continues developing and strengthening collaborations with policy makers, other associations, communities and platforms. Throughout 2024, the collaboration with the JU and the other JU Associations (ETP4HPC and QuiC), the DSBA Partners (Gaia-X, FIWARE and IDSA), the Computing Continuum and the collaboration with the AI, Data and Robotics Association (Adra) are the most notable ones. Additionally, BDVA has been participating in 6 different strategic projects covering areas of Data Spaces, digital skills, virtual worlds and in the context of the federation of data-driven innovation hubs.

Data Week took place under the umbrella of the Data Spaces Symposium 2024, in Darmstadt (Germany), continued on 5 June 2024, in conjunction with the LAILEC conference organised by KU Leuven, in Leuven, Belgium and concluded on 10 December 2024, in Luxembourg, through an event organised in collaboration with LIST, Netcompany-Intrasoft SA and Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS). In total, Data Week gathered over 400 participants, who enjoyed over 40 sessions, covering burning topics for the Data and AI ecosystem.

BDVA organised the European Big Data Value Forum from 2-4 October 2024 in Budapest, Hungary. EBDVF 2024 was organised in collaboration with local partners Eötvös Loránd University, Ideal-ist, Neumann Technology Platform and SZTAKI. EBDVF brought together over 460 industry professionals, business developers, researchers and policy-makers from all over Europe and other regions of the world to advance policy actions and industrial and research activities in the areas of Data and AI, who enjoyed over 40 sessions, with the latest updates from top research and industry representatives. EBDVF was part of TechDays Hungary, a series of autonomously-organised events that took place from 30 September to 8 October in Budapest.

We invite you to discover all of the outcomes of the Data and AI ecosystem in 2024! Thank you for being part of our journey and we look forward to our continued growth in 2025!

The post BDVA Annual Report 2024 appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

Full members:

• Nottingham Trent University (Academia/Research)
• OTE S.A. (Large Industry)
• UNINOVA (Academia/Research)
• University of the Aegean (Academia/Research)

Associate members:

• Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS (Academia/Research)
• Frontier Kentro Kainotomias Amke (Academia/Research)
• Fundación Instituto Tecnológico de Galicia (Academia/Research)
• GFA Consulting Group GmbH (Large Industry)
• Green Supply Chain Digital Innovation Hub Astiki Mi Kerdoskopiki Etaireia (Other)
• Meaningfy SARL (SME)
• NAIR Center (Academia/Research)
• Research for Science Art and technology (RFSAT) Limited (SME)
• Széchenyi István Egyetem (Széchenyi István University) (Academia/Research)
• Uni Systems S.M.S.A. (Large Industry)

In addition, the BDVA General Assembly (GA33) formally approved the membership change from Associate to Full members of:

• Trialog (SME, France)
• VITO (Academia/Research, Belgium)

We also sadly saw some members leaving, but we are happy to announce that we are keeping a steady net growth over the years, and we are proud to say that the Association is now close to 260 members.

Find out more about BDVA’s membership

There are two types of membership: Full Members and Associated Members.

• Full Members can participate in all the activities of the Association, have full voting rights and can be elected to be part of the Board of Directors. Full members enjoy all the benefits of the Association.
• Associated Members can participate in the activities of the Association without voting rights.

Membership applications are reviewed and can be provisionally approved by the Board of Directors of BDVA. Final approval of membership is granted by the BDVA General Assembly.

If you have any further questions please contact us at info@bdva.eu.

Apply for BDVA membership now!

The post Welcome to new BDVA members! appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

This is why OPENVERSE is organising a workshop on 24 April titled “National initiatives and the European Partnership on Virtual Worlds”, which serves as a platform for discussing how to bring together national-level projects with the European Partnership on Virtual Worlds, particularly through OPENVERSE, which aims to streamline investments and reduce fragmentation in EU research and innovation landscapes.

Register NOW!

The workshop’s primary objectives are to promote the visibility of European initiatives across member states, strengthen collaboration between national and European efforts and continue the momentum of fostering joint projects and cooperation in the Virtual Worlds space.

One of the key features of the event will be a presentation from the European Partnership on Virtual Worlds, which is working to align priorities and pool resources to drive innovation in this rapidly expanding field. Additionally, OPENVERSE will present a mapping of the current landscape of national Virtual Worlds initiatives, providing participants with an invaluable overview of ongoing efforts and projects across Europe.

By the end of the workshop, participants are expected to have gained important insights into the status of the European Partnership on Virtual Worlds and a clearer understanding of the national initiatives and collaborations shaping the future of Virtual Worlds. A critical outcome of the event will be the development of actionable steps that will help to grow the ecosystem of Virtual Worlds initiatives at a European level, as well as fostering stronger networks to encourage community building and innovation.

The workshop is targeted at a wide array of stakeholders involved in Virtual Worlds initiatives across Europe. This includes associations, NGOs, technology platforms and collaborative partnerships working on Virtual Worlds as a central theme or focus area. Participants will also include those running multi-country initiatives or skills development projects with international outreach, such as summer schools or European Digital Infrastructure Consortia.

The European Partnership on Virtual Worlds tackles Europe’s most pressing challenges through coordinated research and innovation. By aligning priorities and pooling resources, partnerships play a vital role in advancing the EU’s political objectives and promoting collaborative solutions to complex technological and societal issues.

As the EU continues to navigate the complexities of the digital future, the collaboration between national and European initiatives could become the key to unlocking the true potential of Virtual Worlds. Through strategic dialogue and continued partnership, Europe will lead the way in Virtual Worlds innovation, ensuring that its impact is felt across all industries, economies and societies.

About OPENVERSE

The vision of the OPENVERSE project is to create inclusive, open and ethically responsible European Virtual Worlds, enhancing the European Union’s technological sovereignty in the global arena. Its strategy involves integrating diverse technological expertise, fostering collaborative innovation, and ensuring interoperability, privacy, and security in digital environments. OPENVERSE aims to lay the foundational framework for these Virtual Worlds, combining user co-creation with extended reality technologies, addressing legal and ethical challenges, and guiding future policy and industry standards for globally influential Virtual Worlds.

The post New OPENVERSE workshop: “National initiatives and the European Partnership on Virtual Worlds” appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

GraphSys’25 will be a full-day (in-person only) workshop, running a single track (i.e., no parallel sessions). They plan to feature one keynote, 6-10 paper presentations, 1-2 invited presentation(s) and one panel. Submissions of full papers (12 pages) are invited, as well as work-in-progress, experience and position papers (6 pages). Organisers will run a thorough revision process to select the papers featured in the proceedings.

When and where:

GraphSys’25 will be Co-located with EuroPar 2025 (August 25-26, 2025, Dresden, Germany)

Contributions and important deadlines:

• Paper Submission: submit a paper or disseminate the opportunity for paper submission within your community.
• Paper submission deadline: May 5, 2025
• Share proposals of key experts: for very good profiles related to the workshop topic, the committee will evaluate candidates for keynotes, invited presentations and participation in the panel. They could also enrich the Program Committee.

Submit your proposal here!

Call for Papers

Aligned with Euro-Par, the premier European conference addressing all facets of parallel and distributed processing, GraphSys’25 is the first Workshop on Serverless, Extreme-Scale and Sustainable Graph Processing Systems. GraphSys is a cross-disciplinary meeting venue focusing on state-of-the-art and emerging (future) graph processing systems.

The workshop is designed for researchers, practitioners and students interested in sustainable graph processing. Participants from academia, industry, (government) research labs and nonprofit organisations are encouraged to attend and contribute to the GraphSys discussions and collaborations.

Topics of interest for GraphSys’25 include:

· System architectures and system designs for graph creation, enrichment, graph query and graph analytics.

· Programming and data-level interfaces, APIs and models for graph processing.

· Benchmarks, performance monitoring, measurement techniques, methods, metrics, tools and instruments for graph processing.

· Sustainability metrics, tools and instruments for real-world, analytical and simulation-based approaches to performance analysis for graph processing systems.

· Parallel and distributed (including heterogeneous) algorithms and methods for graph processing.

· Serverless techniques, addressing graph processing challenges of full-automation software and data services with fine granularity and utilisation-based billing.

· Empirical case studies of graph processing environments, applications and systems, including comparative performance studies and benchmarking of real-world and production graph-processing systems.

· Methodological aspects of software engineering, performance engineering and computer systems related to graph processing.

All submissions are required in PDF format and must be sent via EasyChair.

Important dates: 

· May 5th, 2025         Paper submission deadline

· June 23rd, 2025      Paper acceptance notifications

· July  7th, 2025         Camera-ready due

Organisation:

· Jože Martin Rožanec, University of Twente, Netherlands / Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia

· Tiziano De Matteis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Looking forward to your submission!

Contact Nuria De Lama for more information at: ndelama (at sign) idc (dot) com

The post GraphSys 2025: Call for contributions and paper submission appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

Other calls of interest that did not receive pitching requests have been compiled into a Mural, accessible to all BDVA members. This initiative aims to foster networking and facilitate consortium-building in the coming months. 

Organised in collaboration with members of the BDVA Task Force Healthcare, the event follows a bottom-up approach to identify the most relevant calls for the community. It will serve as a platform for discussions and partnerships on topics primarily linked to Horizon Europe’s Cluster 1, with additional opportunities from Cluster 4, the EU Mission: Cancer and the EIC Pathfinder. 

The post BDVA brokerage event for Data & AI in Healthcare proposals appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.

Date and time: 5 March, from 10:00 to 12:00 CET 

Reasons to join 

If you are interested in understanding the latest developments in Data and AI technology, contributing content, or fostering collaborations with BDVA members and external partners, this meeting is tailored for you. The session will provide valuable insights into ongoing initiatives and future trends shaping the landscape of Data and AI. 

What’s on the Agenda? 

The BDVA Data and AI Tech Task Force recently conducted a poll to determine the most critical areas of focus for BDVA. Key topics emerging from this poll include: 

• Big Data Architectures 

• Distributed AI 

• AI Agents 

• Frugal AI 

• Human-Centric AI 

• Hybrid AI 

• Synthetic Data Generation 

• MLOps & DataOps 

• Pipeline Implementation 

• Product Deployment 

• Knowledge Graphs 

• Data & Knowledge Management 

• Data-Centric AI 

While BDVA continues to engage in various initiatives, this particular Task Force is fundamental in shaping the future of AI and Data-driven strategies. 

Collaboration & Next Steps 

During the meeting, the Task Force will discuss member contributions and host expert presentations on these key topics. There is still time for members to contribute with their insights! 

In addition to the overarching themes, members have identified additional relevant topics and potential combinations of these themes. The session will include pitches from various organisations, providing a comprehensive perspective on the evolving landscape. 

As a key outcome, BDVA will form expert teams and interested organisations to collaborate on these topics throughout the year, fostering innovation and deeper engagement in Data and AI technologies. 

Final Details 

The names of presenters will be added by 3 March. If you are passionate about Data and AI developments and want to be part of a collaborative and forward-thinking ecosystem, make sure to join this BDVA AG meeting! Interested in taking part? Connect with BDVA Secretariat at secretariat@bdva.eu!

The post BDVA Activity Group Meeting to explore key Data & AI Tech trends appeared first on BDV Big Data Value Association.