ONE YEAR OF DAPSI – WHAT’S NEXT?
As we celebrate the one year anniversary of the Data Portability & Services Incubator, we spoke with Sara Mateo, the project coordinator, about the past, present, and future for DAPSI.
Sara Mateo, DAPSI Coordinator
What is your assessment of this first year of the project?
Definitely, it has been a special year for everybody. After the first months of project, mainly spent in preparatory actions, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.All countries worldwide have suffered disruptions and face challenges at health, economic and social level. There is a complicate horizon and uncertainty, mainly for small companies.
Nevertheless, moments of adversity are also moments of opportunity. Thus, I believe that the lockdown was somehow a time for innovators to think about new projects and dedicate time to make them real. This could be one of the key ingredients for the high participation in our 1st open call. Data Portability and Services awoke the interest of the researchers and innovators, exceeding our expectations in terms of call participation. We received 182 applications.
A hard and intense process of selection resulted into 11 winning proposals with more than 1.3M€ of funding committed to support them. We officially started the incubation programme with our innovators in September. Let’s see the interesting results they deliver in the coming months!
What are the lessons learnt and main achievements so far?
One of the main insights after this first year and the first call is that Data Portability is a topic of huge interest in Europe. The large community of followers on twitter (with +1.000) prove it, as well as, of course, the results of the 1st open call. We have also learnt that remote work is possible. We have managed to adjust our DAPSI programme towards a 100% virtual format with successful results. Some sessions were designed to be physical, but the current situation made...