Whether it is facts, values, measurements, observations, variables, concepts, instructions or any other limitless source of information, data and the knowledge derived from it is the new capital in today’s economy. The fast-evolving world of Data Economy, an emergent business industry based on the publication, management, intelligent use and share of data, supported by high-tech innovations, new tools and new skills, connects a wide variety of partners and competitors who benefit from investing in this field.

Is Europe ready for the Data Economy? Will Europe lead the Data Economy? Is the Data Economy inclusive? How does Europe empower its Data Innovators?

The Data Economy has become a key asset for the EU with great potential to contribute to Europe’s overall sustainable growth. However, the potential of the Data Economy to generate new businesses and stimulate growth in Europe is under-exploited, as European governments and public authorities have just begun to realize the value of data to the economy.

The technological advances of Open Data (data that are freely available to anyone to use), Big Data (data easily collected, managed and processed despite their high-volume, high-speed or high-variety) and Linked Data, (data interconnected in order to be better shared), urge the EU to meet the challenge in order to promote a European Data Community with data platforms free and available to all users.

To this end, the European Commission has already launched through its Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) initiative a series of actions, resulting in new and innovative applications. Under its Open Data Policy, legislative measures on re-use of public sector information, such as the PSI Directive (Directive 2003/98/EC), nationally applied rules as well as rules on the re-use of the Commission's own data; non-legislative measures supporting the opening up of public sector information; and Open Data Portals have been adopted. In particular, the European Commission has already developed an Open Data Portal platform through which a growing range of data from the institutions and other bodies of the European Union is free to use and reuse for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

In this context, the European Data Forum brings together stakeholders from across Europe, to exchange views, knowledge and experience on the matter in order to strengthen the European data economy and its positioning worldwide. In this year’s annual two-day Conference held in Athens on 19 – 20 March 2014 under the auspices of the Greek Presidency of the Council of the EU, the different stages of the data value chain will be at the centre of discussions.  Participants will try to assess the progress accomplished so far on technology and infrastructure and debate on the emerging challenges on new products and services for the Open, Linked and Big Data, as well as socio-economic issues (social impact), legal issues (data transparency and protection), government policies, regulations (e-governance, personalised services, efficient public sector), commercialisation and innovation.

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