Data Summit Luxembourg 2024

Innovation throughout the Data Journey: Data Summit Luxembourg 2024 event report 

After a successful inaugural edition, the second edition of the Data Summit Luxembourg took stage on the 11 December 2024 in the European Convention Center Luxembourg, including 23 presentations, 2 parallel trainings, and 35 speakers. In the presence of around 500 guests, supported by 17 partners and sponsors, the second Data Summit Luxembourg lived up to the promise of its first edition, enlarging its scope and scale.

The Data Summit Luxembourg is the leading event to showcase the value creation potential of public sector data. Hosted by the Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS) it brings together local and international participants from academia, government, and industry to foster collaboration and advance data sharing and analysis. By making data more accessible and discoverable – in a trustable way, with the human in control – it is possible to unlock the potential of data to pave the way for innovation and improved policymaking. 

In this year's edition, Data Partners were in focus, showcasing the possibilities of secondary use of data through impactful data projects. Highlights of the event included addresses by Minister Stéphanie Obertin and Minister Elisabeth Margue, providing an outlook regarding Luxembourg’s take on data and AI, engaging panel discussions on data governance and digital futures, two parallel training sessions and a concluding keynote, providing a futuristic view of data and Web 3.0. 

Strong collaboration for Data and AI in Luxembourg 

In the opening address, Minister Stéphanie Obertin emphasised the importance of possibilities that Luxembourg as a small nation has, compared to large nations with big data volumes. While Luxembourg may not have the most data, as a nation we can focus on the quality, creating enriched data. Enriched data is data that is intelligently connected, contextualised, and rendered more useful. Luxembourg’s vision is to become a leader in data quality, enriched data, and innovative data solutions, through a collaborative approach. 

“in Luxembourg, through our national data strategy and the future data law, we embrace a different approach: one that prioritizes quality over quantity, strategy over scale, and innovation over imitation” 
 

Minister for Digitalisation and Minister for Research and Higher Education, Stéphanie Obertin 

A notable piece of news was shared by both Ministers - on 10 December 2024, the Luxembourg project ‘Meluxina-AI’ was selected by the EuroHPC, as one of seven consortia to establish and operate one of the first AI Factories across Europe in Luxembourg. The AI Factories will provide essential computing power, data, and talent to boost AI development and support growth of start-ups and SMEs in strategic sectors like finance, cybersecurity, automotive systems, and space. 

Minister Elisabeth Margue underlined the importance of the AI Factory for Luxembourg and emphasising that while AI is everywhere, it is essential to remember the human aspect. As a nation, Luxembourg needs to move from strategy to execution, always with human centricity in mind. With Luxembourg’s small size, our advantage lies in strong collaboration between all the stakeholders and the consistent approach that we try to adopt between all the ministries to accelerate implementation of AI. 
 

“I'm sure that if the whole ecosystem works in the same direction, we can truly become an AI nation.” 

Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister for Media and Connectivity and Minister of Justice, Elisabeth Margue 

A focus on collaboration is present also in the implementation of the upcoming Data Governance act. In the panel discussion, Navigating the Data Governance Act: Roles, Responsibilities, and Collaboration in Luxembourg, the Ministry of Digitalisation, CTIE, CGPD and LNDS opened up about how the organisations together address the task to prepare for a successful implementation. The organisations were aligned on two steps; Luxembourg needs a clear catalogue of data in the public sector and efficient collaboration between all involved parties. 

Can we Unlock value from Data? 

After national level discussions in the early morning, the Data Summit programme zoomed out to European level. One of the key challenges in data today, is a lack of standards and lack of trust. Technological components are well established, however, to create value from data, and make more data, more usable for more companies - or organisation, we need a stronger network of trust. 

“Would you give your most valuable data set that you have in your company to your competitor, or would you give it to a tech startup that can be bought by your competitor tomorrow? Obviously not. And that's the reason why many companies keep on struggling with the sharing of and collaboration on top of sensitive data.”

Björn De Vidts, CEO of Athumi 

From the question of trust, the next keynote, brought the audience to the question, how to unlock value from data and AI. Ana García Robles, Secretary General at Big Data Value Association brought to the stage key takeaways from the final edition of the Data Week 2024 by the BDVA, held just the day before the Data Summit Luxembourg. A strong emphasis was set on sustainability, not only ecological sustainability, but sustainability of communities. How we combine innovation, ethics and compliance, and how we navigate the and implement regulations together, will have key impact on the community. Creating value from data requires viewing it from an ecosystem perspective and fostering collaboration among multiple stakeholders. 

“Data is the blood of our digital ecosystems, and I am very impressed by the eco-system around data in Luxembourg” 

Ana García Robles, Secretary General at Big Data Value Association (BDVA) 

To follow, Malte Beyer-Katzenberger, Policy Officer at European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG-CONNECT) gave an overview of the European Data Strategy, highlighting the benefits of the upcoming Data Governance Act. As an example, for agricultural business owners (e.g. farming) access to broader data from the industry, will have great value for the business owner (e.g. the farmer), to optimise their processes.

“It is not a 100m sprint - we are in a trusted marathon.”

Björn De Vidts, CEO of Athumi 

The European look was concluded on the terms of trust, well summarised by Björn De Vidts, highlighting the longevity of the process. To counter the challenge of data and AI today - we need to build trust. This can be well related with the perception of running a marathon. To succeed you cannot go (too) fast, but be persistent and with a solid strategy and preparation.

An overview of insights into Data Protection and Data Stewardship. 

Side-by-side to the plenary sessions, two fully booked parallel trainings took place with 30 participants in each training session. First up was the Data Protection Training, an introductory workshop for beginners held by Jaroslav Jirsa, Senior ELSI Specialist at LNDS. Following the themes of the newly launched e-learning course GDPR Basics, this workshop gave an overview of the fundamentals of European data protection legal framework, including Personal data, Processing and purpose, Roles, and Lawfulness of the processing. 

The following training on Data Stewardship functioned as an interactive teaser into the full-length training on data management & stewardship training facilitated by LNDS. Led by Nijat Hajikhanov, Senior Data Steward at LNDS, this training gave an introduction to the core concepts and skills of successful stewards, their functions, obligations, essential principles and practices, highlighting key considerations for data management and stewardship. More content and further trainings are planned to be held on the subject in late 2025. 

With the high success rate and positive feedback from participants, it is already a fact that parallel trainings will make a comeback in the 2025 edition of Data Summit Luxembourg. Stay tuned for updates and details to come further into the year. 

Exploring the End-to-End Data Journey through 10 Impactful Data Projects 

Staying true to the event theme – Innovation throughout the Data Journey – the afternoon of the Data Summit focused on real-world presentations of Data Projects for Impact. The end-to-end-journey is an overarching explanation of what the journey looks like in the process of secondary use of data. See the presentation slides for the visualisation of the end-to-end journey and stay tuned for further articles to follow in 2025. 

To explain practical use cases of the various steps of the data journey, concrete data projects were explained on stage. In addition, LNDS released two new data services, created in collaboration, unveiling new opportunities for value creation from secondary use of data. Thank you to our partners and speakers from Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Luxembourg Environment Agency, Luxembourg Health Directorate, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research, STATEC, Ministry of Mobility and Public Works, DataThings S.A, INCERT, MyConnectivity and Ministry of Research and Higher Education for insightful presentations.

A look into the future 

The Data Summit Luxembourg 2024 culminated in a concluding futuristic presentation, showcasing One day from life of Alice In Wonder Web 3.0 Data Space. Alex Tourski, founder of the Post-Platforms foundation, presented the future of data and platforms through illustrative examples of best and worst case scenarios of how data can move between and be controlled by data holders. In this thought-provoking ending, the data holder is put in focus. Whereas in the current Web 2.0 AI can be used to control minds of people, in Web 3.0 people will control their data, AI and through that their minds. If you missed the session and are curious to see the story, it is possible to see the videorecording, here. 

Thank you to sponsors, partners and participants 

The numerous coffee and lunch breaks offered insightful discussions to the realm of data, at the 19 stands including Gold Sponsor Microsoft, our Silver sponsors and partners, accompanied by delicious food. The foyer also enabled to possibility for further discussions around the data services of LNDS, including the two new services launched on stage – Pseudonymisation and Secure Processing Environments. Thank you to all event sponsors and partners for enabling networking into the late hours of the afternoon.

The Data Journey continues in 2025 

…and the date is set! Save the date - 2 December 2025 - for the third edition of the Data Summit Luxembourg. The 2025 edition takes place in the European Convention Center Luxembourg, with a new update on the realm of public sector data and AI.

We want to thank our partners, sponsors, guests, and staff for taking Data Summit Luxembourg to a new level. Sponsorship packages for the 2025 edition will be published in January and the line-up of speakers is started.

Would you like to be part of the journey as a sponsor, speaker or participant? Fill in the form to share your interest – Sign up here.