Shaping Europe's digital future: Swiss blockchain technology specialist becomes Marispace-X partner

The EU is striving for autonomy, but in particular for its own data sovereignty. The aim of Gaia-X is to build a European data ecosystem and promote digital sovereignty in Europe. In Germany, the Federal Ministry for Economics and Climate Action (BMWK) is responsible for this project. Specifically, Gaia-X is a cloud infrastructure that takes into account European data protection requirements as well as transparency and compatibility. The multi-million maritime lighthouse project Marispace-X has been working since the beginning of 2022 to create a digital maritime data space based on the data sovereignty, security, interoperability and modularity of Gaia-X.

In order to make good decisions in this important Gaia-X ecosystem - a database of the sea, so to speak - robust and secure solutions are required and Marispace-X has therefore been using components developed by Vereign as part of the Gaia-X Federation Services (#GXFS) for some time.

As part of the project, Vereign now ensures that users, regardless of whether they are companies or authorities, can handle their data with confidence. If, for example, a user wants to identify themselves to companies or authorities as part of an authentication process, they will be able to keep their own data with them in future instead of storing it with other cloud providers such as Google. This ensures that users can identify themselves securely and independently in Marispace-X.

The teams from the Kiel-based cloud geodata specialist north.io, which is responsible for the three-year Marispace-X project among other things, and Vereign have already been working together on an ongoing basis as part of several hackathons prior to this new technology partnership.

"Our team supports several Gaia-X data rooms during their launch and contributes to the various hackathons around Gaia-X, including first place at the TechX Hackathon in Bilbao. Vereign is now bringing this level of expertise directly to Marispace-X,"

says Georg Greve, CEO and co-founder of Vereign.

 "We are very pleased about the collaboration and that Vereign, as a Marispace-X partner, can contribute its in-depth expertise in the field of digital identity so directly," says Jann Wendt, initiator of Marispace-X and CEO of north.io." Over the past 12 months, our Chief Technical Officer has conducted a thorough analysis of various technical options and components. Vereign's expertise and professional approach really convinced us - making them the ideal candidate for our team,"

he adds.

Specifically, the two companies will work together on the Marispace-X wallet and integration with the Eclipse Dataspace Connector, the plans for which will be agreed during a special session at GXFS Connect from 5-6 September 2023 in Berlin. A joint hackathon is also planned for later this year at north.io in Kiel, the coordinator of Marispace-X.

Vereign (short for "Sovereign") is a company for sovereign technologies, in particular for services and products related to Self Sovereign Identity (SSI). Founded in Switzerland in 2017, Vereign has always prioritised the principles of openness, privacy and security. Vereign offers professional services, fast response times and support for sovereign software solutions, such as the Eclipse Cross Federation Services (XFSC) -- also known as Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS) -- for organisational management of verifiable data and verifiable credentials, including SSI wallets for people and an API for trust services, or digital twins for emails and documents.
Website: https://vereign.com

Marispace-X is a project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action in the context of Gaia-X. The aim is to build a maritime data ecosystem that allows stakeholders from businesses, science, authorities and NGOs to securely manage, distribute and analyse the data obtained via and from the sea on the basis of European standards and values and to gain new insights and develop new innovative solutions and services in the future.

With the development of this digital ecosystem of the oceans, the project consortium addresses several important challenges of this decade, such as climate change, marine conservation and digital transformation through numerous practical use cases, including offshore wind, biological climate protection, ammunition in the sea, the Internet of Underwater Things and the protection of critical infrastructure.

The project consortium is led by cloud geodata specialist north.io GmbH and cloud provider IONOS. In addition, it comprises consortium partners the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research (IGD), the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Stackable GmbH, Kiel University and Rostock University. The involvement of numerous other international associated partners and maritime stakeholders ensures application-oriented development in all areas.