DPS, News, Projekt POSSIBLE, Juli 2021
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POSSIBLE project wins GAIA-X funding competition

News from July 06, 2021

On June 30, the Federal Network Agency announced the winners of the GAIA-X funding competition organized by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The POSSIBLE project, in which Fraunhofer FOKUS is also involved as a partner, is one of the competition winners.

The goal of the POSSIBLE project, which was successful in the funding competition, is to significantly simplify communication between government, commercial and private users via interfaces. First, exemplary employees of administrative organizations, small and medium-sized enterprises, and educational institutions are to access all information associated with their digital identity via a data room to be able to exchange it securely and in a controlled manner.

The basis for this is the Phoenix project, in which the project partners are jointly developing an open-source alternative to office solutions for the public sector. Phoenix integrates tools for communication via video, chat, and mail, file sharing, collaborative editing of documents, and uniform user management in a web workplace. POSSIBLE is designed to enable digitally sovereign handling of data and processes in GAIA-X via the integration of Phoenix.

GAIA-X: A sovereign European data infrastructure

Key selection criteria of the funding competition were innovation and application potential, technical feasibility, and the composition of the consortia, which should cover the entire value chain. “All selected project outlines are qualitatively convincing and innovative. There are many companies and research institutions that have the will and potential to bring the GAIA-X project into an application quickly and across the board”, said Jochen Homann, President of the Federal Network Agency.

The Federal Network Agency has selected a total of 16 projects that can submit applications for funding by the end of July. Eleven of these projects – including POSSIBLE – are to receive a total of 122 million euros in funding during the first 36-month approval period. As lighthouse projects, the selected projects are intended to illustrate the technological and economic benefits of GAIA-X. At the end of the funding competition, all participants are to publish the research results as well as examples of application to provide an impetus for GAIA-X and move closer to the goal of a sovereign European data cloud.

POSSIBLE stands for “Phoenix open software stack for interoperable engagement in dataspaces.” The POSSIBLE project is being implemented by a consortium that includes Fraunhofer FOKUS, Dataport, Bechtle, Univention, IONOS, and companies from Scheer Holding.