At the General Meeting held on Monday on the 7th of June 2021, the members of the European Gaia-X, European Association for Data and Cloud AISBL, selected for the first time a Board of Directors for the association. Erja Turunen, Executive Vice President, digital technologies, was elected as a board member from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
Gaia-X is a European initiative that defines ways to reliably share data. It will create an open ecosystem that defines standards and infrastructure for data sharing based on European values.
The ecosystem aims to provide a reliable platform for companies, industry and public bodies to manage, disclose and produce data. Gaia-X creates a framework for the growth of the data economy and the creation of data spaces based on European values and design principles. In fact, none of the major upheavals, such as transport, energy systems, the circular economy or proactive healthcare, can happen without the common rules about data sharing.
"It is a great honour to be part of such a large European project to build Europe's digital future, competitiveness and well-being. Gaia-X also offers domestic companies networks to reach the European digital market, and now is a good time to seize this opportunity”, says Erja Turunen.
Business opportunities for domestic operators
Gaia-X originated at the initiative of Germany and France back in 2019, and it currently involves almost 300 organisations from different countries. Finland has been actively involved in mapping the business opportunities for Finnish actors. For example, in VTT’s PREGAIA project, led by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy and Business Finland, the aim was, together with industry, to involve Finland in this development and to find out how Finland should proceed and what kind of technology and services should be developed in the future. VTT is also part of the Finnish Gaia-X hub co-ordinated by Sitra and actively participates to the Gaia-X work groups.
