Mário Campolargo was born in Gafanha de Aquém, Ìlhavo in 1956. He graduated in Electrotechnical engineering from the University of Coimbra (1978), has a master's degree in Computer Science from Imperial College of London (1983), a postgrad degree in Management from Ecole Solvay of Brussels Free University (1992) and a diploma in European Studies from Cat6lica University in Lovaina-a-Nova (1995).

He was a researcher at the Telecommunication Studies Centre (Aveiro) for 12 years and headed the Software Engineering division. He was the Portuguese representative at the International Telecommunication Unite and led several European projects.

In 1990, he joined the senior staff at the European Commission and was manager and scientific lead of the RACE research into telecommunication programme. In 1999, he took on the role of Head of Unit of "GÉANT and e-Infrastructure" at the DG Information Society, and was charged with several R&D portfolios,
focusing especially on implementing global e-Science infrastructures.

In 2008, as Director of "Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures at DG CONNECT, he was in charge of the Future and Emerging Technologies area, ICTbased Infrastructures for Science, Cybersecurity, and experimental research for the Internet of the Future.

In 2012, he headed the "Net Futures" department at DG CONNECT, focusing especially on the field of the Internet of the Future, including SG, Cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IOT), Smart Cities and corporate innovation insitiaties, such as Startup Europe.

From 2016 to 2022 he was Deputy Director General and Director General of DIGIT (European Commission), in charge of the global strategic and operational coordination of the directorate-general, for the definition and implementation of the European Commission's Digital Strategy, and the transition of the Commission's services to working from home during the pandemic, focusing particularly on creating a digital culture and cybersecurity issues.

He also led European initiatives in the field of Interoperability (including the COVID digital certificate) and the Modernisation of European Public Administration.

Silvia Castellvi (female) is a Director Research & Standardization at International Data Spaces Association She has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Silvia is responsible for standardisation activities in close collaboration with CTO Sebastian Steinbuss. She participates in the Data Spaces Support Centre, OMEGA-X, ZERO-SWERM, OPEN DEI and TRUSTS research projects, most of them leading standardisation activities. Before joining IDSA, Silvia worked for i2CAT (2016 – 2020), where she was responsible for Industry4.0 business development. Previously she worked for 18 years at Atos, the last 10 years on European R&I projects. During this period, Silvia was the coordinator of C2NET and ASTUTE projects and participated in FITMAN, FISPACE, ROAD4FAME and KAP projects among others, mainly in the manufacturing and supply chain sectors.

Gianfranco Cecconi leads the global community of open data and data sharing practitioners for Capgemini Invent, the management consulting of the Capgemini group. In his role, he has been contributing to several initiatives implementing the European data strategy, from data.europa.eu – the EU’s programme for the promotion of open data – to the Support Centre for Data Sharing – the first EU programme for the promotion of data sharing in general, both of which he led in the past for DG CONNECT and the Publications Office of the European Union. Today, he volunteers as an expert contributor to the EU Data Spaces Support Centre.