The current  FIWARE Core Industry Group (Atos, Engineering, Orange and Telefonica)— has recently announced the launch of the open FIWARE Foundation which will support the growth of the FIWARE platform as an open source project, and be governed by a Board of Directors and CEO, serving the broader FIWARE community.  On this occasion, three SmartAgriFood companies were showcased to illustrate the best practices in using Fireware technologies.

Back in 2011, the European Commission and the main players of the ICT Industry built a partnership to develop an open initiative targeted to create a sustainable ecosystem that will allow Europe and other regions who wish to join to capture the opportunities that will emerge with the next digital revolution.  This resulted in the FIWARE initiative, an open source API platform which, to date, has released 42 standardized software components aimed at helping startups and enterprise build the next generation of smart applications and services for cities, industries, e-health or agribusiness (see related news). 

The Foundation will bring support to FIWARE activities including the continuing technical evolution and support of the platform that is necessary for the uptake in the smart cities, industrial Internet of Things and agri-food sectors, among others. FIWARE established its independent open community last year to support members to adopt best open source practices based on openness, transparency and meritocracy. This way FIWARE will become the open source community of reference for setting the platform de-facto standards used when developing sensor-enabled, data-driven, smart applications and services.

The European Commission welcomes the creation of the FIWARE Foundation, established by European industry to promote the trend towards open service platforms and considers this is a visible commitment of European businesses to bring more innovative internet services to consumers, citizens, businesses and the public sector.