First IDERHA ‘hackathon’ produces basic IDERHA architecture

A primary objective of IDERHA is to develop one of the first pan-European health data spaces. This term is an umbrella for many different processes that must work together to enable secure exchange and use of health data. The goal of a meeting held on 20-21 July in Luxembourg was to lay the cornerstone for the technical platform that will support these processes in the future.

Based on a ‘hackathon’ format, two technical teams of Fraunhofer ISST and University of Luxembourg focused their attention on two promising technical approaches to federation and data management: the GA4GH compatible cloud services implemented by ELIXIR, and the Eclipse Dataspace Component Connector, developed in orientation toward Gaia-X and IDS principles.

The event was efficient and successful on many levels. By the end of day one the teams had an architecture draft that was able to withstand in-depth questioning by the participants. By the end of day two the technical feasibility of a connection between these two components was proven by implementing a proof-of-concept.

And maybe most importantly: social connections were made, and participants were, even during the hackathon, already discussing the possibility for a next one.

The outcome of the hackathon will support many different efforts in IDERHA. Not only is it something that will eventually mature into an action plan for the technical experts and final platform architecture (project deliverables 1.1 and 1.3), but it will also support the discussion of use cases and workflows, enabling IDERHA to clarify interactions of different personas with the data. This will refine the Data Management Plan (DMP; project deliverable 4.1) and Data Impact Risk Assessment (DPIA; project deliverable 5.1).