Bilbao hosted the technology-focused Tech-X Conference of the Gaia-X initiative, which was co-organized with a Hackathon.
The competing teams had to work on real-life end-to-end scenarios which leverage the Gaia-X Open-Source Software and the Trust Framework. Their solutions contribute to a more trustworthy data ecosystem.
At the beginning of May, the Gaia-X and the OSS community gathered for two days in Bilbao, Spain for the annual Tech-X Conference & Hackathon event. Attendees had the opportunity to participate in Gaia-X Workshops and Presentations on the latest technologies, compete in the two-day hackathon with the Gaia-X Open-Source community, and network with a range of businesses, Gaia-X HUBs, verticals, Lighthouse projects and members.
Gaia-X brings together industry, politics, government, research, academic, technical and scientific leaders from Europe and beyond to collaborate on the next generation of trusted data infrastructures. Technology providers, users, large businesses, and small and medium businesses have joined the effort to define how they want to maintain control over their data, including who can access it, for what purposes, where it is stored, and by whom it is maintained.
Gaia-X operates with national Gaia-X Hubs, which serve as the central contact points for interested parties in each country. iToBoS project partner SZTAKI launched the Hungarian Hub in April 2022, thus, the number of the local contact points of Gaia-X was increased to 18.
Transforming data economy: showcasing the achievement of Gaia-X
Plenary sessions covered a wide range of topics linked to Gaia-X: from showcasing the federated architecture and the concept of the Gaia-X Digital Clearing House (GXDCH) to demonstrating the practical implementation of a secure and decentralized Gaia-X-compliant use case. These sessions are accessible via the dedicated Tech-X website.
Hands-on workshops were provided for those interested in the future of privacy-preserving computation under Gaia-X, designing, building, and deploying Gaia-X Workflows and Compliance Service 22.10 among others.
Walk the talk-solving real-life problems, securing medical data
Six competing teams entered the 6th Gaia-X Hackathon, each team was working on a different real-life end-to-end scenario. Curating and handling medical data and providing access to such data are among the most sought-after issues we must overcome.
One of the teams, Conditional Trust – ODRL (Open Digital Rights Language), demonstrated a live access flow, where the patient can only get their lab results through a doctor, not directly from the laboratory. Here, all stakeholders have to be taken into account when the principles of SSI (Self-Sovereign Identity) are applied. This touches on the topic of medical data that is considered highly sensitive, therefore it must be cured and handled in a trusted environment Gaia-X can provide. In this scenario, the workflow must be compliant with the patient privacy policy and legal regulations by default. Solutions that ensure medical data is accessed and managed properly could be exploited by well-suited projects and initiatives like iToBoS.
The Gaia-X Hackathon Report detailing all Hackathon scenarios is available online.