April 10, 2018

„THE NAME NOW CLEARLY SHOWS THE STRATEGIC ORIENTATION”

From now on, IDSA is called International Data Spaces Association. The general assembly decided on the renaming on 22 March. Dr. Reinhold Achatz, CTO at thyssenkrupp and Chairman of the Board of the IDSA illustrates the reasons and advantages of the new name and explains the targets IDSA has set for the future.

IDSA decided to rename the association at the general assembly in March. What was the deciding factor behind that?

There are now many people from different industries who realised the demand for secure data exchange and established communities pushing forward the development and use of IDS for their respective areas. There are, for example, the Medical Data Space and Logistics Data Space organisations. An Urban Data Space is already in the preparation phase and the topics of Farm& Food are further key points.

One catalyst for the new name was the members‘ feedback from the Medical Data Space Community: they were convinced of the concept, but saw a big challenge in communicating it in their sector with the name Industrial Data Space. An argument that was then discussed intensively and controversially in the board. In our point of view, the benefits of renaming finally prevailed. We unanimously decided to recommend changing the name to International Data Spaces Association to the general assembly. And this recommendation was accepted.

To what extent does the new name accurately reflect the tasks, function and orientation of the association?

On the one hand, there are the so-called communities. All of them will be included as independent Spaces in the new name of the association and follow the common architecture and the standardised interfaces. This will communicate the entire versatility and diversity of the association and of IDS. On the other hand, it also addresses our strategic orientation. We have set ourselves the aim of internationalising the association and that IDS works according to global standards. Now, that also manifests itself in the name. We mustn’t forget that the Industrial Data Space brand and the community will continue to exist – with the focus on manufacturing and production as one of many areas that are pooled in the International Data Spaces Association.

What are the goals of the International Data Spaces Association for the future?

We aim at increasing the recent positive developments even further. To do so, we would like to win more members for IDSA from various industries, of course beyond national borders – and increase the adaption rate of IDS concepts in companies. I believe the new name has also opened up new target groups for us.

Moreover, we want to illustrate the applicability and benefits of IDS in practice. We want to do that with use cases that particularly present and communicate the unique features of IDS. We have achieved an important milestone for the implementation with the new, second reference architecture that will be officially introduced at HMI – for the first time with IDSA as the International Data Spaces Association.

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