A very full week, mostly away from home. Didn’t really have time to digest anything before another very intensive week.
This week I

• Spent most of the week, Monday to Thursday in Darmstadt, Germany. Took a train Monday, return on Thursday evening. Visited the three day Data Spaces Symposium, meeting ‘everyone’ involved in this topic in the EU.
• Met someone during that event whose last name led met to ask if they had any family in a small village in Tyrol. From 1979 until 1983 or so I spent summer and winter holidays there with my parents and sisters, that I tremendously enjoyed. We stayed at the farm of a family of the same name. Turns out his grandfather was a brother of the family we rented our lodgings from, and he grew up in the same village. We had a laugh about how I knew details about his home village and his family from 40 to 45 years ago.
• Had a meeting on a potential European collaboration a client may enter into.
• Joint a half day session on Friday picking up the work on a reference architecture for systems of connected local digital twins for the physical environment. Previously I contributed to this at the end of 2021, early 2022. The work has become more important again in light of some national programs and renewed European attention. Meanwhile also the European legal landscape has been put in place that was in the proposal stage in 2021, and which is relevant in this context.
• Spent an afternoon with Y skating (she) and cycling (me) and having juice (she) and coffee (me) in the neighbourhood. After days in a conference center without daylight it was nice to be outside on a spring day.
• Went into the city with E and Y on Sunday to visit a fun exhibition at Kunsthal Kade and the local bookstore as it is national book week. We enjoyed a nice galette and crepe lunch in town, as if we were in France.

At Kunsthal Kade