• OptimusChain will lay the foundations for big data systems to assess and monitor the business value of their data
  • Collibra, a billion-dollar Belgian data governance and catalog software company, has partnered with OptimusChain, a research fellowship sponsored by the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie research project EDGE

Dublin, IRELAND, 15 April 2019: Computer Scientists from the ADAPT SFI Research Centre are partnering with Collibra, a leader in enterprise data governance and catalog software, to develop innovative ways to estimate and monitor the value of data to a business. The ADAPT-led OptimusChain (Optimising Data Value Chains) initiative will spearhead new technology that will empower company leaders to identify valuable data in their organisations so that they can focus on operations that add value instead of drowning in an uncharted, risk-laden sea of low value data.  ADAPT Centre researchers based at Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University will lead the research which is part of Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie research under the EDGE programme with investments by the European Commission, Science Foundation Ireland and Collibra Inc.

Data has become a key input for driving growth and enabling enterprises to maintain a competitive edge. In a world of Big Data, businesses are often collecting all possible data without a strong understanding of how it will contribute to their value creation process. This leads to wasted resources, evolves into complex technical challenges, conflicts with GDPR principles and often complicates rather than clarifies decision-making. The chief goal of OptimusChain is the development of new methods and tools that will allow organisations to assess the value of their data as part of a data governance function and to use these valuations to drive business decision making. This will lay the foundations for the next generation of data governance systems that focus on optimal data distribution in the enterprise and empowering digital transformation by simplifying data-driven decision-making.

The project will be conducted by Dr Judie Attard, a Research Fellow in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, and supervised by Assistant Professor of Computing at DCU, Rob Brennan, both of whom are affiliated with the ADAPT Centre.  

Speaking about the collaboration, Assistant Professor Rob Brennan said: “OptimusChain is an exciting collaboration between computer scientists in Ireland and innovative European companies that are leading the world in data governance and helping us understand all the data that now flows around us.” Dr Attard is enthusiastic about the collaboration and “considers the research in OptimusChain to have an excellent potential to enable the improved efficiency and efficacy of data value chains in any enterprise that uses data”.

The Collibra platform will be a major test-bed for OptimusChain technology, while Collibra customers will participate in trials. Researchers from both the newly established Collibra research centre in Brussels, Belgium along with the corporate headquarters in New York, USA will collaborate with Dr Attard and Dr Brennan over the course of two years of research.

Dr Pieter De Leenheer, Collibra co-founder and Chief Science Officer added: “We’re excited to partner with the ADAPT Centre, a worldwide leader in data valuation research. Data valuation is an essential component in establishing efficient data exchanges, and helps to define a company’s data equity, which is crucial for companies to understand how they invest to support and utilize their data.”