Looking Back at a succesfull Gaia-X Tech-X & Hackathon 2026 in Athens

On 28–29 May, the Gaia-X Tech-X & Hackathon #9 brought together developers, engineers, researchers and innovators from across Europe in Athens, Greece. The event focused on technical exchange, collaboration and hands-on innovation within the Gaia-X ecosystem, combining expert presentations, interactive sessions and a hackathon dedicated to solving real-world challenges around trusted data sharing, interoperability and digital sovereignty. CoE-DSC and TNO were strongly represented throughout the event and contributed to several important developments that support the future of European data spaces and cloud ecosystems.

First prize for the CoE-DSC/TNO team
For the third year in a row a podium finish for CoE-DSC/TNO at the Gaia-X hackathon! This year the team (Giulia Biagioni, Ioannis Tolios, Ivo van Dijck and Ines Martinez Bustamante) won the first prize with the development of an innovative neuro-symbolic workflow that combines multiple AI approaches. Their solution enables smarter search capabilities for digital marketplaces, automated verification of service compatibility (such as SaaS and PaaS offerings), and the assessment of provider trustworthiness. By strengthening trusted collaboration between digital services and supporting interoperability within federated ecosystems, the solution contributes to the broader goal of enhancing European digital sovereignty.

Advancing Trust and Interoperability
During the conference, Giulia Biagioni (CoE-DSC/TNO) also presented the integration of the Myrtus Trust Framework with Gaia-X Danube, the new Gaia-X compliance and verification framework. This integration represents an important step towards greater standardisation and interoperability across the Gaia-X ecosystem. The solution supports the trusted onboarding and verification of new participants, helping organisations join federated ecosystems in a secure and efficient manner. The implementation is already available for testing through an online Swagger UI environment and demonstrates how practical trust solutions can accelerate the adoption of interoperable data spaces across Europe.

Building the Foundations for European Data Spaces
The achievements presented in Athens underline the important role of trust, interoperability and innovation in the development of sovereign European digital infrastructures. CoE-DSC and TNO are proud to contribute to these efforts and look forward to continuing collaboration with the Gaia-X community to strengthen trusted data sharing and cloud ecosystems across Europe.
At the Data Sharing Festival earlier this year we spoke about this with Gaia-X CTO Christoph Strnadl,. In this video you find out more about his vision on the future of the European data ecosystem, collaboration and digital sovereignty.

 

 

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