The past years, Project PISTIS and its consortium partners (SMEs, public sector and otherwise) have focused on designing, developing and deploying new tools for data marketplaces for the above-mentioned domains:

1. Venues such as airports need a lot of information to properly operate and to stay ahead of the curve. While doing so, they generate vast amounts of data. Quite some of that non-personal data is also interesting to market to and otherwise share with third parties. During the project, this was a key focus of the use cases in and around the airport and related public transportation
2. In the energy domain, organisations involved, including prosumers do not only produce and distribute electricity. Each also produces data, and can distribute those, for once – as one of the many other purposes to market and share data – to increase grid reliability
3. One of the interesting aspects of the automotive road safety domain was to focus on connecting with and using third party data for instance from traffic authorities, weather data providers and OEMs. All this, to make traffic more environmentally friendly, safer, and more efficient.

Recipient, User, Generator, Offerer, Sharer & Curator: You Are Part of the Data Flows

One the main common denominators of these three domains was that domain stakeholders were not only accessing and using data as customer and user, but also generating it as user, and licensing it out or otherwise sharing and curating it as controller. This is a special characteristic of data; it is omnipresent, hence we are all part of the data flows and it is up to you and us together to use it to the best extent possible. All this, obviously within the EU Rule of Law.

All this has added value to data and most importantly value to the respective missions of the PISTIS demonstrator domains, and beyond.

Data Defined

Where there is a lot to say what data is, such as that information is a structured set of data, and knowledge is used information and data, until recently there also was a lot of ambiguity what it meant. Based on own values and interests, definitions were created on the spot, either to claim control or to block access, use and re-use, or to argue that it only would concern customer data. Wrong! To clear these generally self-centred arguments of the table, finally we have clear and enforceable definitions of data, such as:

Data: any digital representation of acts, facts or information and any compilation of such acts, facts or information, including in the form of sound, visual or audio-visual recording.

Metadata: a structured description of the contents or the use of data facilitating the discovery or use of that data.

Product data: data generated by the use of a connected product that the manufacturer designed to be retrievable, via an electronic communications service, physical connection or on-device access, by a user, data holder or a third party, including, where relevant, the manufacturer.

Related service data: means data representing the digitisation of user actions or of events related to the connected product, recorded intentionally by the user or generated as a by-product of the user’s action during the provision of a related service by the provider.

These are codified in the Data Act. The Data Act empowers the customer/user as it now has the control over data, including metadata, product data and related services data – where generated. It has triggered a paradigm shift to data control, access and use by and for the customer/user. And, by whoever the customer/user may wish to share it with. The Data Act ensures fair distribution of value derived from data and the use of it, as an asset and means, among actors of the data society and its economy – of any and all sizes.

Said otherwise, after all those years the Data Act has moved us from data blocking situations towards data unlocking opportunities, to access, control and use, and reuse.

With that, one can easily argue that we live in the Age of Data Abundance.

The Age of Data Abundance; You are in Control! Now what!?

Now that there is an abundance of data, by means of data access, the right to use it in (almost) any way, the fact that digital data is just that, digital so can be used infinitively, and that it can be shared over en over again. Now what?

Said otherwise, what are you going to do, strategically, with now being in control and data empowered? How will you make that happen, and how will you make it purposeful, impactful and sustainable?

First of all, this data abundance means that domains as part of PISTIS (airports and related public transportation, energy and electrical grid reliability, and automotive road safety) can – even more so – add a lot more data and data sets to their value models, business models, offerings, barters and other deals. With that each can adding even more value to mission, business, and life.

Let’s run through some examples on possible purposes that one can consider to consider and enable, where you could be the customer or user (‘User’), or the organisation mandated by the User to further data and data flow for its benefit (‘Data Recipient’):

1. Improve performance of any existing agreement with the User or activities related thereto
2. Monitoring and maintaining the functioning, safety and security of the connect products or related services, and ensuring quality control
3. Improving the functioning of any product or related service offered by the Data Recipient, such as aftersales maintenance and support
4. Providing support, warranty, guarantee or similar services or to assess User’s, Data Recipient’s or third party’s claims related to the Product or Related Service
5. Developing new products or services, including AI solutions, by the Data Recipient, by third parties acting on behalf of the Data Recipient (i.e. where the Data Recipient decides which tasks will be entrusted to such parties and benefits therefrom), in collaboration with other parties or through a joint venture
6. Sharing the Data with non-commercial organisations or via the Data Recipient to non-commercial third parties (against compensation, or as a donation without compensation)
7. Sharing the Data with commercial organisations or via the Data Recipient to commercial third parties (against or without compensation)
8. Aggregating the Data with other data or creating of derived data, for any lawful purpose, including with the aim of selling or otherwise making available such aggregated or derived data to third parties, provided such data do not allow specific data transmitted to the Data Holder from the connected product to be identified or allow a third party to derive those data from the dataset.

Let’s Start!

Identifying interesting purposes and figuring out what data is necessary to start that mission, address the challenges, run the scenarios and achieve the objectives are part of the first steps that will lead to more innovation and short, mid and long-term impact. Said otherwise, these are strategic success factors.

From a more tactical perspective, typical queries to carefully work through and resolve are:

1. How to organise data access and sharing on an ongoing basis
2. How to identify and engage with relevant data recipients, and
3. How to define value models and revenue models around data access, use and derived insights.

These are no longer hypothetical, academic wishes, dicussion points or queries. In this Age of Data Abundance, these can – and should – now be grasped, made actionable, operational, and sustained. With that, you are adding even more value to mission, business, and life.