Author: Christopher Wilson, Executive Director of MyData Global
2024 was my second year with MyData Global, and it was a pivotal one, marked by investments in our long-term sustainability and impact. This was both challenging and exciting, not in the least because it took place against a turbulent technological, societal, and regulatory backdrop. 2024 saw remarkably rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, the first sprouts of long-anticipated wallet and ID solutions, and the steady proliferation of novel regulatory and business initiatives around the world. The MyData mission resonates perhaps more strongly than ever in this context. As we reflect on what it means for 2025 and beyond, it’s worth taking stock of some of the key milestones we’ve hit in the last 12 months.
Investing in membership
We spent most of 2024 investing in our community and enhancing the value we provide to our members. During the second half of the year, we refreshed our member value proposition, showcasing the benefits our community members say they gain from their involvement. We also introduced several new initiatives, including the members opportunities board, collaborative fundraising schemes, and a wide offering of members-only events and explainers. If you haven’t already, take a look at our membership brochure to learn more about how we support our members and hear their feedback. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like to discuss.
We’ve also renewed our efforts to promote and acknowledge members of the community. We provided members with a platform to present their service offerings to regulators in international fora, funded members to participate in international events, and launched a new and expanded MyData Awards, that recognises the breadth and variety of work being done, not just by entrepreneurs & technologists but by the thought leaders, policy innovators, journalists, researchers and activists by people and organisations around the world to achieve the MyData vision.
A community in action
All of this happened in the dynamic context of our community doing actual work, and the introduction of 19 new organisational members and 65 new organisational members. These new members joined a thriving community, where our members won prizes, launched pilot implementations, secured seed funding, and were certified as Europe’s first data intermediary service provider. In the spring of 2024, the community also organised a series of workshops on
patient-centric health together with patient organisations, the European Commission and the OECD. A Thematic Group was launched to develop an Open Standard Personal Data Model, while the Operators Group held sessions on Interoperability, standards bodies and other key topics, while MyData4Children expanded their global footprint and collaboration with partners like UNICEF and the 5Rights Foundtation.
Making our mark
The year hasn’t only been inward-looking, however. Starting with the January publication of the collaborative think piece on individual and group data and data governance, we’ve combined thought leadership with strategic engagement to promote a human-centric approach to data policy and data management. This included key input to the OECD task force on Trusted Data Intermediaries, building directly on member consultations. We also provided regular contributions to other multilateral and global policy fora, including the UNDP Advisory Body for Model Governance Framework for Data Exchange, the OECD Expert Community on Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT), the DG GROW Special group for drafting the Code of Conduct for data management and sharing in the social economy, and others.
The EU is rolling out a “tsunami” of new data and digital regulation, but often the enforcement is lagging behind. That’s why we coordinated with key partners to produce an open letter to the European Commission on the importance of enforcing data portability requirements of the Digital Markets Act, signed by over 50 organisations and acted on by the office of the European Commissions Vice-President for Competition.
Investing in governance
2024 was also a year of governance reform, streamlining processes, removing roadblocks, and making sure that our Association is accountable and in service to its members. From January through September, the Transitional Board dedicated their time, insights and social capital to find and recruit candidates for a new Board that would be equipped with the networks and expertise to drive MyData’s work and impact in the years to come. Building on key governance reforms passed in the the Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024 General Meetings, the new Board received its mandate in October, and is now ready to help us achieve our goals moving forward.
Projects serving a vision
Projects continued to play an important role in our 2024 activities, providing close to half of our budget and unique collaborations and fora to advance our mission in the EU.
In 2024, we began work on NextGen, with the goal of building novel and synergistic tools for genome-centric multimodal data integration in personalised cardiovascular medicine. More than just a project, CYANOTYPES is a community of change dedicated to addressing Europe’s cultural and creative sector needs and skills, and where in 2024 we enhanced the use of data in developing competencies and frameworks.
Most prominently, the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC) is a key European Commission initiative, dedicated to operationalizing the European Data Strategy. Its primary mission is to facilitate the creation and development of common data spaces, fostering an interoperable data-sharing environment that enables data reuse across sectors while fully respecting EU values. Our contributions ensured that personal data intermediation is a key element of the DSSC blueprint, guiding the development of data spaces and advancing architectures and governance models that empower individuals. DSSC coordinates with over a dozen sectoral data spaces that are being implemented in the following years and is an example of MyData Global’s success in positioning itself into strategic European projects.
Looking ahead
Building on these investments and engagements will require MyData Global to continue strengthening its efforts and impacts as an impactful and recognized thought leader who works with and through our members. There are at least four key inflexion points for doing this in 2025.
- The EU Data Union. As the new European Commission takes up its work, there is a strong momentum towards simplification of EU regulatory frameworks in the interest of tech sovereignty and European competitiveness. This is a critical moment to safeguard the EU’s leadership in advancing human-centric data while grasping opportunities to operationalize the principles that were articulated in the EU data strategy but have remained out of reach. We will be actively pursuing this with the new commission, starting with a closed roundtable in Brussels on 4 February.
- Going global. MyData has Finnish and European roots, but it is a global movement, with near 400 members in well over 40 countries. As we move into 2025 we will continue to work to understand, leverage, and support the innovations and field-leading initiatives emerging all across the world, connecting thought leaders, decision-makers and game changers from different continents and contexts. For example, in February, we will be in Taiwan for the RightsCon conference and visit our key stakeholders in Japan.
- Updating the MyData Declaration. It has been eight years since the foundational MyData Declaration was drafted and began to drive international attention and momentum for the MyData movement. Although many of the general principles outlined still hold, the world has changed rapidly, Thus, in 2025 we will lead a collaborative process to determine how the Declaration should be reframed and reformatted to fit our world in data. We expect the new Declaration to be unveiled at the MyData conference and to get recognition in 2025-2026.
- The MyData Conference. September will see the 10-year anniversary MyData Conference in Helsinki. The call for proposals is coming soon and the conference leads are engaging partners and sponsors. Get in touch and stay in the loop!
We’ll present a work plan to operationalise this in the Spring General Meeting on 9 May, but look forward to working for you and with you well before then. It’s been a big year. Another big one is coming. We’re in this together. Onwards.
