New Technologies for Gaia-X: Consortium Announces Project Start

Gaia-X is a project initiated by business, politics, and science representatives from Europe and beyond to create a federated and secure data infrastructure following European standards. The goal is to make the big data industries less dependent on major American corporations, and thus strengthen the digital sovereignty of European users. In order to advance this endeavour, different initiatives within Gaia-X have published tenders for the necessary technology; one of these tenders was published by the eco association for the Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS).

As a result, DAASI International started a bidding consortium together with the Swiss software visionaries of Vereign AG. Thanks to extensive experience in the relevant disciplines combined with a competitive offering, three projects for the following topics could be won: a personal credential manager, an organizational credential manager, and a trust services API.

The Projects

Once the milestones have been defined in cooperation with the Gaia-X management, development will begin in February. Within the ambitious time frame of only six months the basic code is expected to be available to the community via GitLab. Any progress will be publicly accessible. Moreover, it is strongly encouraged for the community to engage and contribute already during the development phase. Once the projects are concluded, the code will be officially handed over to the Gaia-X community.

Self-sovereign Identity

Self-sovereign Identity will be a quintessential concept for the realisation of the three projects. A decentralised identity shall empower users to achieve more self-determination and control over storage and sharing of their identity data. The data is stored in a so-called wallet belonging to the user. This wallet also contains the digital keys for authentication with online services, thereby making their storage of the same data obsolete. State of the art Blockchain technology ensures the integrity and verifiability of the used data.

Vereign AG, the head of the consortium, has gained extensive experience combining both Self-sovereign Identity and Blockchain technology. DAASI International will lend their expertise in the development of innovative open source software, as well as in classic identity management.

About Vereign

Verifiable and sovereign – the name says it all for Vereign AG, founded in Zug, Switzerland in 2017. The Swiss company is one of the most innovative start-ups of recent years and was nominated for an audience award at the Digital Economy Award in Zurich's Hallenstadion in 2019.

Besides a self-sovereign identity solution Vereign offers blockchain secured, digital provenance with verifiable credentials for emails and documents. Designed according to privacy-by-design, data-saving and open source principles.

About DAASI International

DAASI International is an expert in (federated) identity and access management, using open source technology exclusively. Since it was founded in 2000, the IT service provider from Tübingen, Germany deals with identity management, access control and directory service technologies for universities, public authorities and companies. Additionally, DAASI International is actively involved in the field of digital humanities and participates in national and international research projects, including the digital research infrastructure DARIAH-DE. DAASI International’s range of services covers consulting, support, hosting, and software development, as well as various trainings.

For further information: https://daasi.de