Joint Press Release

Berlin, Madrid, September 29, 2020 — FIWARE Foundation and Alastria Association have signed a Collaboration Agreement aimed at fostering the integration of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) into the architecture of smart solutions powered by FIWARE. FIWARE Open Source technologies are becoming the reference for applications and platforms developments in domains like Smart Cities, Smart Energy, Smart Agrifood, Smart Manufacturing, or Smart Water Management worldwide, while Alastria has created the leading blockchain network used by companies of most relevant industries in Spain. Alastria is also considered a key international reference in terms of methodology, technology, the definition of the digital identity model, and use cases. 

The collaboration is called to represent a major step towards the adoption of blockchain / distributed technologies within private and public organizations allowing them to accelerate digitalization in different industrial and business sectors in the following years, achieving higher agility, veracity, security, and efficiency.

Smart solutions powered by FIWARE gravitate around capturing, managing, and processing context data that are defined as the collection of properties describing digital entities that work as “digital twins” of objects in the real world.  Examples of digital twins can be buses, streets, shops, citizens, or even citizens’ claim tickets in a city, or crops, tractors, and spraying drones on a farm. Some of these smart solutions may require recording of certain actions or events in such a manner that manipulation by any unauthorized party can be prevented and proper auditing and certification of processes can be guaranteed. FIWARE and Alastria will foster development and disseminate results of projects where the integration of FIWARE and DLTs will be piloted. Furthermore, Alastria experts will contribute to FIWARE roadmap activities in the area of DLTs.

“The agreement signed with FIWARE Foundation will help to disseminate the advantages in the use of DLTs in relevant areas such as Smart Cities, Smart Energy, Smart Agrifood or Industry 4.0 where FIWARE is significantly present”, emphasizes Monserrat Guardia, General Manager of Alastria. “Blockchain is an enabling technology that can accelerate projects with great impact on society in a transversal way. The collaboration agreement with FIWARE Foundation allows the incorporation of its wide vision to the analysis of solutions on DLT technologies addressing challenges not solved with other technologies  – in fully new ways”, explains Jesús Ruiz, CTO, and member of the Board of Directors at Alastria.

Ulrich Ahle, CEO of FIWARE Foundation, confirms the importance of this collaboration underlining: “Alastria is a leading organization in the field of DLTs in Spain and their blockchain network is considered a reference.  There is a growing number of scenarios where the integration of DLTs with FIWARE is bringing substantial value. With Alastria, we demonstrate a full complementary vision”.

Furthermore, Juanjo Hierro, CTO of FIWARE Foundation explains: “We are excited about bringing Alastria experts on board for our technical roadmap activities and see the great potential derived from the integration of ‘powered by FIWARE’ solutions with the Alastria network. FIWARE is capable of guaranteeing that data stored into blockchains like the Alastria network is not fake data but data properly gathered, e.g. through sensors, robots, or information systems”.

To kick off the first official event in a series of joint activities filling the collaboration agreement straight with life, both partners announce the joint roundtable at Greencities, the yearly forum around the building of smart and sustainable cities in Spain, taking place in Málaga September 30 to October 1. In the joint FIWARE-Alastria session on September 30, experts will discuss the potential derived from the use of blockchain and DLT technologies in the framework of Smart Cities, supporting objectives like transparency and traceability of processes, or offering guarantees and confidence in transactions linked to the sharing and trading of public and private data. Results shall have the potential to contribute to the goals set in the Spain Digital 2025 Agenda and in European initiatives towards promoting a Digital Single Market and the European Green Deal.

The joint participation in Greencities additionally reinforces the commitment of both organizations with the city of Málaga as a pole of innovation around FIWARE and Distributed Ledger Technologies.  It comes as a natural next step after the Global Blockchain Challenge in November 2019 that was organized by Alastria in Málaga which has also brought support to other initiatives and projects from entrepreneurs around Distributed Ledger Technologies through the association’s ECO Andalucía. Málaga has been the selected venue of several FIWARE Summits in the last years and the seat of FIWARE Zone, one of over 20 FIWARE Digital Innovation Hubs (iHubs) today active on 4 continents. 

About FIWARE Foundation

Together with its members and partners, FIWARE Foundation drives the definition  –  and open source implementation  – of key open standards that enable the development of portable and interoperable intelligent solutions in a faster, easier, and affordable manner, while avoiding vendor lock-in and promoting FIWARE as a sustainable and innovation-driven business ecosystem. The Foundation achieves this by supporting a fast-growing global community that shares a common vision and combines its efforts to make FIWARE the Open Source technology of choice for industries, governments, universities, and associations to not only realize its full potential but also expand its activities into new markets and grow their business. So far, 170+ game-changing “Powered by FIWARE” and “FIWARE-ready” solutions are present in the FIWARE Marketplace. Founded in 2016, the organization has more than 350 global members, including Atos, Engineering, NEC, Red Hat, Telefónica, and Trigyn Technologies among its Platinum Members. For more information visit  fiware.org  and follow us on  Twitter,  LinkedIn,  Facebook, and YouTube.

Press Contacts:

Cristina Brandtstetter
cristina.brandtstetter@fiware.org

Val De Oliveira
valdirene.deoliveira@fiware.org

About Alastria

Alastria Association is a non-profit association that fosters the digital economy by promoting decentralized/blockchain technologies. It is a Spanish multi-sector consortium with an international vocation, made up of more than 570 partners of all types of sizes and sectors: companies (micro-enterprises, SMEs, and large companies), the Academy (universities, business schools, training centers, technology, and science parks) and public administrations.