The first year of Gaia-X Hub Austria is coming to an end, and it is time to look back on the events and developments that have accompanied us over the past twelve months.

We have experienced a year full of challenges and opportunities in the data economy, and as the management board, it is now a good time to review and evaluate our goals.

After an exciting preparatory phase involving many stakeholders from the Austrian community (research, industry, economy, politics, ICT industry, and civil society), we formed an exciting multi-stakeholder management board with a legislative entity at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). The initial phase was fast-paced and steep, with our initial focus on organization, strategy, and developing a common understanding. We have published the outcomes – vision, mission, goals, and non-goals – on our website to ensure they are accessible to everyone.

On behalf of the Ministry of Finance (BMF) and in collaboration with the Secretary of State for Digitization and Telecommunication, Florian Tursky, we organized a lecture with a workshop at the European Forum in Alpbach. We have already actively participated in over 50 events and produce the monthly format “Inside Gaia-X” providing interested individuals with comprehensive insights into the Gaia-X ecosystem. This includes event reports and videos for later viewing. We continuously provide information about events, news, and insights on our website, https://gaia-x.at. Furthermore, we offer technical articles for download, among other resources. Interested individuals also can subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date.

A special highlight for us at the beginning of the year was the Market-X event, where we managed to bring nearly 500 participants, 24 speakers, 27 exhibitors, and numerous active Gaia-X projects to Vienna.

With a strong advisory board actively involved and supporting us, we can successfully promote the topics of data economy, data sovereignty, and value creation potentials. As Gaia-X Hub Austria, we want to ensure that Austria remains active and, in some areas, takes a leading role in the European Gaia-X initiative during this crucial phase of digital transformation, involving politics, science, research, business, administration, and civil society organizations. Recently, we established the first domain, Manufacturing, with Michael Fälbl taking over coordination and serving as a contact person.

In summary, we can conclude that this topic is gaining increasing importance, and many companies still struggle to classify it correctly and have not fully capitalized on the associated opportunities. The technical explanation is not simple, and terms such as data spaces, federations, and identities are not self-explanatory. Therefore, as Gaia-X Hub Austria, we continue to pursue our mission and vision to make our contribution. Overall, the Gaia-X project has made significant progress in the last 12 months and will play an important role in shaping the future data economy in Europe.