This content was created by the Data Sharing Coalition, one of the founding partners of the CoE-DSC.
The Data Sharing Coalition supports organisations with realising use cases at scale to exploit value potential from data sharing and helps organisations to create required trust mechanisms to share data trusted and secure. In our new, blog section ‘Q&A with’, you learn more about our participants and their thoughts, vision and ideas about data sharing. Hans Timmerman, Director of Fortierra, kicks off this first edition.
1. Could you briefly introduce Fortierra?
Our company collects open data about ‘living’ (wonen) and qualifies this data for use in the triangle ‘living-law-value’. We are therefore not a ‘pass-through platform’ for general open data, but we add value by collecting, testing, evaluating, cleansing and combining available data against international (ISO and SDG), European (EU) and national standards (NEN), mandatory registrations (Building Decree 2012, number of points and value energy audit), legislation and valuation systems (ACM, AFM, WOZ).
The volume of accounting data available continues to increase. For accounting and statutory audit firms, this is an opportunity to be seized in this new digital world. Thanks to data mining and sharing, firms are now able to make their customers’ data speak. The use and relevant sharing of data offers them the opportunity to develop new missions, to gain relevance and thus to improve their support.
2. To what extent is Fortierra involved in data sharing (within and across sectors)?
Fortierra provides data products − with associated data structures and potential cross sections − for data sharing and as qualified input for data chains, process chains and information processes. For example, trajectories for maintenance such as audits, maintenance, repair, overhaul and improvement over the lifecycle of the property. Or trajectories for care that may be delivered safely and certified at home (this applies to youth care, informal care and nursing care).
3. Why is or should sharing data be important for your industry or domain?
Qualified and accountable data that is organised under solid data architectures is the basis for a quality-oriented process assurance such as ‘lean six-sigma’ and blockchain processes. In our new digital society, ‘digital data’ is both the oil (sharing) and the gold (privacy). The challenge of combining those two opposites (sharing and preserving) and the associated developments are important for any industry or domain. I would describe it as a Yin-Yang combination of sharing and preserving in an endless data centric ring of Möbius.
A trend is that there is an increasing demand from the market to make open data available, and more and more open data is becoming available.
4. What are the most promising data sharing developments and trends you see in your sector?
We are not a sector. Fortierra supplies cleaned open data products as quality data for information chains. The focus is on the living, energy and environment sectors, but we supply qualified open data products for every sector. Take for example the real estate sector, where we look at the living environment. A trend is that there is an increasing demand from the market to make open data available, and more and more open data is becoming available. Data comes from all kinds of data sources. Fortierra cleans this data and transforms it into high-quality data that is usable for and available to others.
5. How do you see the future of data sharing, and what steps is Fortierra currently taking in that direction?
During our transformation to a new digital world, new and improved EU regulations in the areas of open data, data sharing, privacy and digital platforms are pushing Europe in the direction of a ‘civil society’, versus the different US (market dominance) and China (party dominance) directions. Data sharing in a civil society will (and should!) be based on totally different assumptions and democratic starting points. We have to define our own ‘constitution’ for this digital civil society − based upon respect, privacy and open sharing − and how to use and apply that in new social and economic ecosystems.
As data is the main building block of our new digital civil society, we have to qualify and secure our constitution and human rights while optimally sharing, (re-)using, and applying data in our society and economical ecosystems. This demands that joint initiatives take the lead in responsible usage of the social and economic opportunities that data sharing between businesses can realise. New data centric organisations, corporations and linked ecosystems will be the wires and nodes in this fabric of collaboration and cooperation. Fortierra supplies data as a raw material for other chains. We turn mined data from all kinds of sources into high-quality data. This way, others can start sharing data in and across chains.
6. Why is Fortierra participating in the Data Sharing Coalition?
Our company has been established based upon the principle of using open data in both an economical and ‘social responsible’ way. Our information products should be in accordance with all open data agreements (EU open data directive), reference architectures (NORA, VERA etc.), registrations (IFRS 16 lease RGS, SBR) and other legal frameworks. We are one of the data providers that ensures data is of high quality. Within the Data Sharing Coalition, we are able to share our ideas, visions, proof of concepts and do’s and don’ts in the area of data sharing. This includes all learning moments, (future) challenges and stories about utopias and dystopias of having unlimited access to all kinds of shared data.
