During the last FIWARE Global Summit held in Málaga, the iHub Committee announced two new iHubs in Cologne (Germany) and Badajoz (Spain). Juan Marcelo Gaitán Leiva, former interim chairman of the FIWARE iHubs Committee, was also elected as chairman.

Juan Marcelo is the Director of the FIWARE Zone in Málaga, one of the main instruments for the development of an innovation-driven ecosystem, including companies, entrepreneurs, public administrations, associations, technological clusters, universities, startups, etc in Andalucía.

“I am extremely grateful for the support of all the members of the FIWARE iHubs Mission Support Committee. We have done a great and a hard work together during the last two years to set up a worldwide iHub network that would not have been possible without their collaboration”, said Mr. Gaitán. “During 2017 the iHubs committee defined a model of innovation and a procedure to assess and label the iHubs. We created the organizational structure of the community, making the FIWARE iHubs network a reality. Now in 2018 there is a growing community in more than 11 countries that is also connected to other initiatives like FIWARE Mundus and FIWARE Accelerate. The overall objective is to reinforce the links between entrepreneurs, public administrations and industries to build a community of developers adopting and contributing to FIWARE”.

The FIWARE iHubs is a strong community, growing fast and healthy thanks to the effort of a great group of professionals. The main challenge for the next two years is to establish a sustainable business model for the iHubs. “We are working in different strategies focused on the promotion of the collaborative projects and activities among the FIWARE iHubs members which may bring additional sources of funding and revenues”.

Our network of iHubs is growing and we’re looking for new iHubs to join our ever-growing network. Download the guide for applicants and join us!

About FIWARE iHubs

A FIWARE iHub is made up of one or more competence centers where a number of activities will be carried out to foster the development of the FIWARE ecosystem at a local level. These activities include technical support, consultancy, coaching, training, testing, certification, etc. on FIWARE technologies, the promotion of FIWARE in different events, the engagement of local companies in different FIWARE-related programmes and building the connection of different stakeholders (companies, academia, public administration, etc) at a local level.