Interviews

Meet DidaPOSC - A team which innovated technical implementation of diabetes data sharing and interoperability. Learn more from this interview with Mikael Rinnetmaki. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your team? I’m Mikael and I founded Sensotrend to help make life with diabetes easier through clever apps, both for myself and for others. Now we’re 8 people in total, and most people in the team live with diabetes personally or have a family member with diabetes. What is your motivation to work in the data portability field? Type 1 diabetes is a data-driven condition. To treat myself well, I need to understand how different types of meals affect my glucose levels, what’s the effect of different types of exercise, etc. For this I need to pull together data from many different sources, like my continuous glucose monitor, my insulin pump and from the many apps and gadgets I use to track my exercise, nutrition, and sleep. The open-source development community Nightscout has produced dozens of apps to help with various challenges in living with diabetes. Nowadays it is even possible for me to automate certain aspects of my insulin delivery. But this is only possible if I as a patient have a continuous, real-time access to the data from my medical devices. Today these things are only possible for hackers. They should be an everyday right for anyone living with diabetes. In simple words, what challenges does your project address? Currently many medical devices already upload their data to the device manufacturer’s cloud service. However, it is not possible for me as a patient wearing that device to use the data in apps that I find useful. Through our project we aim to make it easier for device manufacturers to publish the data in a harmonized content format and to build use cases that demonstrate the benefits...

Meet DEIP - A project that addresses the modern challenges associated with event data portability. Learn more from this interview with Angus McLeod. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your team? I’m Angus, the founder of Pavilion, the organisation behind the Discourse Events Integration Plugin (DEIP) DAPSI project. Pavilion is a next-generation cooperative that builds online communities. We’re a globally distributed team of software developers, designers and product managers who build software for forums, social networks and identity frameworks. We work with some of the largest enterprises on the planet and provide free software for many non-profits. What is your motivation to work in the data portability field? We do a lot of work with popular open source software frameworks such as Wordpress and Discourse, and with the thousands of communities and organisations that use them. Data portability is a key variable in that work, particularly when integrating communities and websites into the wide range of services used to manage and enhance an online presence. We believe that data portability and its ancillary concerns such as standardisation are key elements of a healthy internet. In simple words, what challenges does your project address? The DEIP project addresses the modern challenges associated with event data portability and specifically how those challenges arise for online communities. Events are an inherent part of many communities, but managing them across all the different platforms involves challenges of data integrity, access and ease of use. The DEIP seeks to address those challenges. What solution are you developing? The DEIP is both a new framework for event data portability, and a plugin for Discourse forum software that lets you integrate events into your community. The DEIP is a direct response to the challenges Pavilion’s clients and users have faced when attempting to integrate events into their online communities. What are the next steps? The...

Meet DACAPEDA - A project that allows organizations to process personal data without having to access or collect it on their systems based on the user’s consent through the “Data Cage”. Learn more from this interview with Frederic Lebeau. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your team? Datavillage was founded on the belief that data must be reusable while remaining under the control of organisations and individuals at all times. Datavillage is a team of 6 people, 2.5 of whom focus on the business and 3.5 on the technical aspects. Quentin, co-founder with a background as entrepreneur and in charge of business development and marketing aspects. Philippe the tech lead withmore than 20 years of experience in open data and semantics technologies. Loic in charge of data engineering and data science aspects with 10 years of experience and former big data lead at CERN, Justin full stack developer with 5 years of experience in enterprise application development and Ruben with 6 years of experience and lead business developer specialised in data value and data governance. Finally, myself Frederic Lebeau co-founder at Datavillage with 20 years of experience in the financial industry working on enterprise software development,  architecture, innovation and cyber security. At Datavillage I’m in charge of product, market positioning and architecture.. What is your motivation to work in the data portability field? Access to data can be a very powerful tool, both in the positive and the negative sense. We believe that data can play a tremendous role in understanding how to improve certain critical domains of people’s daily lives such as mobility, financial management, lifelong learning, moving from sick care to healthcare, etc. The data economy must be oriented towards value creation that is open and inclusive. We strive for our technology to benefit not just our company, but real people and...

Based has a very clear vision: helping developers build and iterate fast with no trade-offs. Find out more in this interview with Nuno Frade. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your team? Hi, I'm Nuno. I have been programming since an early age and saw cyberspace transforming from Bulleting Board Systems to clunky web browsers to the ubiquitous, always connected, real-time network that surrounds us now. I worked for a long time in advertising and digital production until eight years ago, when I finally accepted that I didn't love it and just wanted to code again. I ended up in Amsterdam, joining the fantastic team that is now Saulx. Saulx is a group of people with already established experience developing interaction-heavy applications and in cloud infrastructure. We have a shared love for creating cool software, believe in comfort and friendship in the workspace, and have a healthy dose of arrogance about building better and simpler solutions than we often see. What is your motivation to work in the data portability field? Throughout our previous projects, we have been developing technologies that allow us to create applications with a focus on real-time interaction and large-scale audiences. We tried existing solutions from the big cloud providers. However, the data lock-in and non-linear cost model make them unappealing, or even a dangerous business choice for projects when they eventually scale or their requirements change. Our technology evolved to avoid these drawbacks and we transformed it into a product: A data platform for developers so they and their companies can have modern data and back-end solutions without having to take the same long road we did. We want our clients to own the data and be cloud provider agnostic, respecting their needs or choices regarding where the data is stored geographically. In simple words, what challenges does your project address? Web application...

All NGI DAPSI Open Call 3 data portability solutions at one place.  We are happy to inform you that all data portability solutions developed by our amazing |Open Call 3 teams are now available at ngi.eu website.  

It’s true: we are now in the last year of the DAPSI programme! But our work is not over yet. In this interview with Sara Mateo, the DAPSI Project Coordinator shared with us what is yet to come and the project main achievements. Sara Mateo, DAPSI Coordinator What were DAPSI’s biggest challenges and accomplishments in 2021? In 2021 we welcomed a new batch of teams. 15 projects were selected to advance in Data Portability and Services challenges. Due to the pandemic, we had to continue with a virtual format approach, opposite to the initial plan where we expected to meet our teams at the beginning of the programme and also at the end in a final event that has turned to virtual again. Thus, all the community building activities, key for reinforcing human and business relationships, were organised remotely. Nevertheless, we hope to be able to organise a final project event at the end of 2022 to meet all our teams and boost future collaborations around Data Portability beyond the DAPSI project end.   Last year, DAPSI supported two batches of projects and conducted a third call for data portability innovations. Having seen so many different solutions, what surprised you the most? Yes, it has been a busy year! In April 2021 we launched the programme with the round 2 teams, in the beginning of June we held the round 1 final event and in November we opened our last call. All of the projects selected have a common goal to support the advance of the state of the art in Data Portability. Under this premise, very different projects can fit DAPSI. It is true that for every call we try to identify some possible areas of work and encourage them. They have slightly evolve: In call 1 we mainly supported: Data Transparency for a more transparent personal data...

All NGI DAPSI Open Call 2 data portability solutions at one place.  We are happy to inform you that all data portability solutions developed by our amazing Open Call 2 teams are now available at ngi.eu website.  

CryptPad has a very clear vision: enable collaboration, while keeping data private. In order to allow this, all the documents are encrypted and decrypted by the browser. Find out more in this interview with David Benqué. Can you briefly introduce yourself? I'm David Benqué, the designer on the CryptPad development team. We make an end-to-end encrypted and open-source collaboration suite. I joined the other two team members in November 2019. My role includes UI/UX design, documentation, support, and many other things. For NGI DAPSI we proposed INTEROFFICE, a project focused on improving document conversions in CryptPad. What is your motivation to work in the data portability field? We're very conscious of the impact of usability and practicality on the adoption of privacy-preserving tools, and portability is a huge part of that. One of the first experiences people have when using a platform like ours is trying to import their existing documents, so that needs to go smoothly in order for them to benefit from the rest of our work. How did you hear about DAPSI and what drove you to apply? We do our best to follow NGI's new programs and see where they intend to lead the European Internet ecosystem next, but it can be hard to keep up! A friend pointed out the deadline of the open call since they knew it aligned closely with things that we've wanted to do for some time. It was very short notice but the effort writing the proposal was well worth it for the opportunity to improve interoperability in this space. Many of our users have requested conversion to and from common office formats over the years, along with the ability to edit them directly within our platform. We experimented with ideas and basic prototypes before, but this is a big job that we wouldn't have been able...

postmarketOS is an alternative phone operating system based on Linux, which aims to give people back control of their existing smartphones. How? By focusing on privacy, security and sustainability! Find out more in this interview with Martijn Braam. Can you briefly introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Martijn, I'm a software developer from the Netherlands. I've been involved in the postmarketOS project since the very start in 2017. What is your motivation to work in the data portability field? I want to empower people to be in control of their own data, by default. How did you hear about DAPSI and what drove you to apply? We heard about DAPSI through the NLnet Foundation, and realized that there were some goals DAPSI and postmarketOS share with regards to data portability. The trainings, mentorship, visibility, and funding offered by DAPSI were also attractive. In simple words, what challenge does your project address? In current mainstream mobile phone operating systems, the user is very dependent on the manufacturer of the operating system. This becomes apparent when starting a newly bought phone for the first time, you are immediately urged to login or create an Apple or Google account. And once you have that, you get suggestions to synchronize your data into their cloud. You are not in control of what ultimately happens to this data. If you refuse to login, you cannot even install apps or important security updates. What solution are you developing? postmarketOS is an alternative mobile phone operating system, which takes data and service portability seriously. In our operating system, you do not need to use an account to receive updates, and you are not asked to upload data to a cloud provider. If you choose to do so, you can also use a self-hosted provider like your own Nextcloud instance, to be fully in control of your data. What...

PDS migrator team embraces a double challenge: on one hand they want to help users move their data from one place to another. On the other hand, they want the systems to discover where the data went after being moved. Find out more in this interview with Yvo Brevoort! Can you briefly introduce yourself? The PDS interop team is currently composed of Auke van Slooten, Ben Peachey and Yvo Brevoort (myself). We are based in Enschede, and together we have been working on open-source web-based solutions and applications for over 20 years. We firmly believe in an open web architecture and open collaboration. In recent years we have been working to improve Solid ecosystem. bringing it to the Nextcloud and the PHP community. What is your motivation to work in the data portability field? Data portability is a concept that has an impact on all of us. We all work with data more and more, and nobody wants to be locked in with a single vendor. We believe that everyone needs to be able to control their own data. On the other hand, we also want to be able to experience the richness of applications that are available everywhere. Data portability is central to bringing both these concepts together. How did you hear about DAPSI and what drove you to apply? DAPSI aims to overcome challenges that we experience in our own work every day, so we are happy to contribute. Having funding from DAPSI allows us to do more contributions and to do more deep work on overcoming these challenges. In simple words, what challenge does your project address? The project aims to reduce the impact of a phenomenon called “link rot”. This is the problem where links on the world wide web stop working because the information was (re)moved, and the user is left with...