International Press Release May 2nd 2017 #1

Embargo May 3rd 2017

MyData 2017 programme published – a conference organised by data experts

Talsinki, Gulf of Finland From August 30th to September 1st, almost 1000 researchers, engineers, business representatives, government officials, and civil society advocates will gather in Helsinki and Tallinn to discuss the future of the personal data economy – in other words how the internet will be reformed by the change to human-centric management of personal data. Ticket sales for “early bird” price start on May 3rd.

MyData is a Finnish-born initiative started in 2013 to help individuals manage and reuse their personal data currently controlled by companies and governments. The MyData conference will bring together an international group of organizations and individuals working towards solutions for issues that are stopping data-based services from reaching their full potential, such as citizen distrust of online services, privacy concerns, opaque terms-of-service agreements, insecure digital identity standards, and government surveillance programs. MyData 2017 will be a forum for a global discussion on how Europe can realise the projected trillion-euro value that personal data services could create by 2020 over the transition of the region into a Digital Single Market.

In 2017 The MyData Conference will be held for the second time. Year before, 670 MyData pioneers gathered in Kultuuritalo in Helsinki. The presentations from MyData 2016 are available on YouTube. The demand for another event became evident in the 2016 conference discussions. This year the conference grows into a twin-city event in Helsinki and  Tallinn, where the ferry trip on the first day from Tallinn to Helsinki is also part of the conference programme. Expanding to Tallinn is relevant since the two countries co-operate tightly in building common digital infrastructure for smooth data transfers. Estonia will also hold the Presidency of the European Union Council in July-December 2017.

The main partner of the event is Suomi.fi services, a digital service platform for both public and private organisations, built by the Population Register Centre of Finland. Suomi.fi services is co-operating with Estonian Information System Authority (RIA) in developing joint solutions and services, such as data transfer between the two countries using the X-Road technology.

For more information about the event, please view our website: http://www.mydata2017.org


Conference programme

MyData 2017 programme is divided into 11 thematic tracks. A separate introductory track is dedicated to teaching the basics of MyData for the newcomers to the domain. Other tracks are focusing on ethics, technological requirements, consent, GDPR and many related topics that are visible here. Almost all tracks have sessions in Helsinki and Tallinn, with the Tallinn sessions applying a more hands-on workshop approach. The boat trip from Tallinn to Helsinki will be devoted to a more relaxed networking, yet content-creating, un-conferencing session.

The conference programme is curated by a team of 35 international experts from a variety of areas ranging from business leaders, legal professionals, technology developers, digital rights advocates and other data thinkers and doers. The programme team is brought together by a shared vision of putting the control of personal data back to the hands of people. “They work with T-shirt salary, like one session host put it, but they do it with passion and that is key to the great programme content – it’s amazing to see the variety of expertise and the combination of international networks that the team brings in” says the programme team lead Antti Poikola. See the programme team members at: http://PLACEHOLDER.wpsho/programme/programme-team

Open values

The event is organised by people working in Open Knowledge Finland, Fing, Aalto University and Tallinn University. Partners of the conference include public and private organisations, internationally and locally, see all partners here.

Since the concept of human-centric personal data management, MyData, was born in Open Knowledge movement, the core team supports open values and transparency in working. The budget of the conference is open and the current financial situation can be viewed by anyone here. Organising the conference together with the core team is possible to anyone through Talkoot, volunteering evenings held almost every Thursday in Tallinn and in Helsinki.

Contact information

Salla Thure
salla@mydata.org
+358440335620