BBVA API Market
Organized by Open Expo Europe, the event was used to present the findings of the study on trends in the open source sector, conducted in collaboration with more than 100 professionals in the industry. These included Ricardo Segoviano, Head of BBVA Open Platform in Spain, who in his contribution to this collective analysis highlighted collaboration, automation and transparency as added value as a trend in the Fintech and open banking sector for this year.
These three key concepts also floated around during the presentation of the study and the subsequent debate, both led by Paco Estrada, author of the podcast on GNU/linux and free software ‘Compilando’. David Rey, Chief Data Officer at Idealista Data, for example, announced that his company plans to open a great deal more data in 2019 to encourage collaboration with external developers, since, in his opinion, “not only public administrations must open their data, but also the private sector.” This is something that Philippe Lardy, CEO of Open Expo Europe, seems to agree with, who ventured that this year “we will see large corporations opening their data.”
This show of transparency also moves to spaces where it seems even more mandatory, such as the Congress of Deputies. Specifically the ITC adviser of the Lower House, José Andrés Jiménez, also participated in the panel discussion, who told the audience that they are already working on a website for the institution. This new portal “leaves behind the look & feel and user experience that is so last century of the current website and opts for open and reusable data”.
A revamp that Laura Tordera, Head of Research & Development of Ferrovial-Agroman, also called for. She told the audience about her company’s experience in the western United States, where they manage highways: “We came into contact with companies in Silicon Valley that extract more data from our developments than we obtain beforehand.” In Tordera’s opinion, “We have great challenges and we must face them if we don’t want to see the great technology companies take us out of our own markets”.
Challenges that we also find in other gaps, such as those that open up such disruptive technologies for open source, such as the chain of blocks that Blockchain brings. In the words of Montse Guardia, General Manager of Alastria—a multisectorial consortium promoted by companies and institutions for the establishment of a semi-public Blockchain infrastructure—these challenges are condensed in the need to obtain more security and more quality in the open developments on Blockchain and, also, “teach ethics to young programmers, those self-taught people who have not even reached university yet.” Something, this ethic of openness and contribution, which, as David Rey pointed out, provides a better code for all, because “people publicly contribute the best of themselves”.
The sixth edition of Open Expo Europe will be held on June 6 in Madrid, offering five events with more than 250 speakers for the more than 3,500 attendees that are expected: the European Cybersecurity Forum, the AI & IoT Summit, the Fintech Forum, the Open CIO Summit and the Open Tech Conference.
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