Press release ILVO wins prestigious European Data Space Award with DjustConnect

The Flemish agrifood data sharing platform DjustConnect received the award for best European Data Space in the category 'user engagement and financial sustainability' in Madrid. The jury praised ILVO's efforts to strengthen confidence in data sharing among Flemish farmers and chain partners in the agri-food sector, and the continuous refinement of the platform based on customer experiences. Although DjustConnect first gained a foothold in the Flemish dairy farming sector, it is now considered a leader in Europe and a catalyst for the growing European data economy.

Flemish Minister-President Matthias Diependaele: "This European recognition reaffirms what Flanders stands for: innovation based on strong knowledge. Our curiosity, research, and collaboration lead to Flemish ingenuity with an impact on businesses and our economy. In a rapidly evolving data economy, this strengthens our role as a leading innovative region in Europe."

Flemish Minister for Agriculture Jo Brouns: "With DjustConnect, we are effectively working on administrative simplification for Flemish farmers. We avoid unnecessary retyping and also guarantee that the added value of the data remains with the farmers."

Stephanie Van Weyenberg, coordinator of DjustConnect (ILVO): "The Flemish agricultural sector is innovative and digital. We demonstrate this every day together with our first customers, the Flemish farmers. We are delighted that they have embraced DjustConnect and that we now serve 25% of them on our platform."

ILVO leads Europe in data sharing

Since 2023, the Flemish data sharing platform DjustConnect has been playing a prominent role in Europe. Initially, it built bridges between French and Finnish national data sharing platforms, but today it also acts as coordinator of the Common Agricultural Data Space, known as Ceads. Ceads aims to become a secure, interoperable, and robust data-sharing system to which existing data-sharing initiatives such as DjustConnect can connect and exchange data, tailored to companies that are active internationally in the agri-food sector.

Farmer focused

DjustConnect brings together leading knowledge of digital strategy, technology, and data regulation with in-depth insight into agricultural and food processes. But at the European Data Space Awards the platform was particularly praised for the engagement it generates among Flemish users and companies that connect to it.

DjustConnect is based on the principle that farmers and growers should retain control over their data. They decide at any given moment which application (still) has access to certain data. To keep the platform as accessible as possible, there is a helpdesk and a team of developers who are constantly making improvements. This is made possible thanks to the support of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Best out of 61 submissions

The ILVO team received the award in Madrid from Boris Otto on behalf of the European Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC) and Ana Garcia Robles from the Big Data Value Association (BDVA). It is noteworthy that DjustConnect was not only voted best agrifood Data Space, but also beat 60 entries from a wide range of sectors. The two other nominees in the same category were a data-sharing platform in the automotive industry (Catena-X) and a French government platform (data.gouv.fr).

The European Data Space Award is an initiative of DSSC, which was created by the European Commission as part of the Digital Europe Program. DSSC aims to help companies and governments create sovereign data sharing platforms.

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