Building a user-friendly yet powerful platform takes intense focus, commitment and hard work, and we are

reaching our final step. Today, Monday 16 March, we’reexcited to announce that we are launching beta.databroker.global exclusively for data providers/sellers. 

During this phase, we will work closely with the first group of data providers: the National Geographic Institute, Robustel, Computd, Phoenix Contact and Ice Gateway. At the same time, we are looking forward to onboard many more organizations looking to share and monetize their data.

Ensuring our data providers get the support they need

Our decision to start with onboarding data providers – see later in this article for more details about the first providers being onboarded – ensures that we can provide the best support and experience, by helping data providers to:

• set up their accounts;

• publish data offers and data products to the marketplace.

During this phase, data cannot yet be bought and sold, however, companies that are looking for specific data can already see the data offers of the providers (https://beta.databroker.global) and are welcome to contact us to be put in touch with the right contacts from the data providers in our expanding network.

Publishing data offers and products

On the Databroker platform, data providers start by publishing data offers – high-level descriptions of a set of data they want to sell in one of the eight data communities, e.g. weather data for Belgium, published in the Geographics community.

Within that data offer, data providers can publish any number of data products – specific data products that are ready for purchase, e.g. temperature data. Data products can be added to (or if needed, deleted from) the data offer marketplace  at any time.

Data providers set their own prices per data product, and can define a fixed price and/or allow bidding by interested buyers. 

Preparing for data buying

While onboarding the first data providers and guiding them through the platform and functionalities, the Databroker team is continuing the requisite steps to prepare for data buying on the platform. A key element in this is Data eXchange Controller (DXC) integrations.

The DXC software, installed on the data provider’s system, allows data to be safely and securely transferred from the seller to the buyer, without ever touching the Databroker platform. The DXC essentially acts as a gateway or proxy between the data provider, the data and a data buyer. 

Thanks to this setup, data not only stays under the control of the data provider, within their own system, but the location of the data is never identifiable, creating an extra layer of security. 

The DXC software is easily and remotely deployable, and can run on any premises, sensor, server, hardware, or IoT platform and for early data providers the use of DXC is free of charge for a period of three years.

Our first data providers and partners

Onboarding of our first data providers and partners is ongoing. Read more below about these national and international companies who share our vision to turn data into real business value, for both buyers and sellers:

Belgian National Geographic Institute (NGI)

The Institut Géographique National/Nationaal Geografisch Instituut is Belgium’s national mapping agency. Under the supervision of the Belgian Ministry of Defence, the NGI offers geographical information and services, such as land registration information, topographic maps, historical maps and orthophotos.

Robustel

As a leading IoT/M2M solutions provider, Robustel is committed to helping businesses and industries across the world to solve their IoT and M2M problems with robust, secure, scalable and creative solutions, from hardware to complete ‘IoT in a box’ services. The company works with over 50 distribution partners worldwide, servicing more than 120 countries, and its solutions can be found in every corner of the connected world–from security, retail and vending, utilities, oil and gas, industrial production and automation, and transportation, to environmental services and healthcare. 

ICE Gateway

Based on a programmable Mobile Edge Computer (iceMEC), ICE Gateway offers innovative, smart city infrastructure solutions, and its network is the cornerstone for numerous services in the fields of street lighting, tourist and location information, mobility and public transport, waste management, security, sensor technology and marketing. ICE Gateway is currently implementing its edge computing-based solutions in 14 cities across five European countries. 

Computd

COMPUTD aims to make machine-learning solutions accessible and widely available. Their state-of-the-art data enrichment and analytics solutions can bring real value to both buyers and sellers on the Databroker marketplace, including pre-trained machine learning algorithms as a service for quick and easy data analytics, and technical partnerships with individual data sellers.

Phoenix Contact

Electronic solutions provider, Phoenix Contact is actively working to shape solutions for the future, and is particularly well placed to facilitate Industry 4.0 by turning digital transformation into intelligent production. With its headquarters in Blomberg, Germany, Phoenix Contact has a long history of machine building and automation, and offers an impressive proximity to its clients thanks to its global network across over 100 countries, supported by 18,500 employees. 

“The team has been working hard to bring us to this point and it is exciting to see Databroker continuing to grow as a platform, as a solution that creates real  business value and as a community. We re-evaluated the business from the ground up based on the valuable insights of our industry contacts, market evolutions and our community input and support. We are eager to begin the next chapter of the Databroker with an impressive group of companies that are coming onboard as data providers.

As we anticipated at the beginning of the Databroker journey, the value of data will increase dramatically over the coming years and this is more true now than ever before. The growth of “Smart” solutions has continued as predicted whether in the context of cities, homes, manufacturing or government and Databroker is well positioned to provide both a venue for exchange and a point of access to the data needed to power these solutions,” says Matthew Van Niekerk, Databroker CEO.

Do you have data to sell and want early access?

Databroker will help you reach large communities of potential data buyers worldwide. Get in touch now to easily set up your Databroker account, to get dedicated support in publishing your data offers and products, and to find out how to integrate the DXC for secure data transfer.

This is the first important step in generating new revenue streams from data you’re already collecting!

Are you looking for specific data?

Then take advantage of our free, tailor-made DataMatch service! In the run-up to the full launch of our new marketplace, you can already contact our DataMatch Advisor, Vincent Bultot. Vincent will explore your data needs and put you in touch with suitable data providers from our global network.

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