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SOFIE Workshop "Close and personal with SOFIE stakeholders" report release

In October-December 2020 SOFIE conducted a workshop comprised of 13 expert interviews with stakeholders relevant to exploiting SOFIE results. The aim of the workshop was to investigate SOFIE solution’s suitability for end-users and establish mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships with the interviewed stakeholders. We are realising the comprehensive report of the interviews to showcase the end-users perspective about SOFIE solution.

The conducted 13 interviews for this workshop were segmented into four groups according to SOFIE pilots* and were carried out by seven SOFIE representatives who lead the work on pilots in the project. They inquired relevant stakeholders and field experts from their use-case perspective. 

Two types of generated data were analysed to draw conclusions (1) content of the open-ended interviews that followed a pre-posed interview outline and (2) the interviewers’ personal reflections about process of the interviews and gathered feedback.


As a result, the "Close and personal with SOFIE stakeholders” workshop interviews provide the following key take-aways:

  • Most interviewees were able to articulate and discuss clear benefits of implementing SOFIE after they were introduced to the value offer and SOFIE project by the interviewers. They were able to see how they could incorporate the offered solution one way or the other now or in the future.
  • The most important benefits that SOFIE can provide according to the interviewees are: access control, cross-country data access, simplicity, additional security (DEDE pilot); flexibility and avoiding installation or upgrading of power lines (DEFM pilot); food quality assurance, trust, traceability and gaining a competitive edge (FSC pilot).
  • In general, the interviewees were unable to point out clear micro-level monetary benefits of SOFIE implementation. Nevertheless, in the energy and food supply chain vectors the interviewees assessed, in a generalised way, that implementing SOFIE would cut their costs and/or produce more income.
  • The biggest barriers to implementing SOFIE according to the interviewees are technical integration aspects, potential additional financing requirements and general reluctance to use (and understand) emerging new technologies.
  • Out of the four pilots, the context-aware mobile gaming pilot affirmed their position that within Rovio Entertainment Corporation they do not have a viable business offer at this point for the pilot. All other three pilots confirmed that their value propositions match their determined stakeholders, and they continue their commercial work.


What is more, the interviewers reported that during the interviews the interviewees were highly responsive and collaborative. In most cases the interviewees were able to expand the discussion at hand and think along with the interviewer, as well as exhibit deeper interest towards the specific value offer under discussion. The interviewees were not explicitly aware of any similar solution to SOFIE, at least not as much as to be able to name them.  

As a result, the suitability of SOFIE pilots value propositions to the stakeholders was confirmed in the cases where the pilots have had business interests throughout the project (DEDE, DEFM, FCS). These pilots will carry on their work to during and beyond the project to push their assets to the market.


Click here HERE (pdf) to access full the report of  "Close and personal with SOFIE stakeholders” and to take a deeper dive into each interview segment.


Written by Liis Livin, Guardtime
Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash



* SOFIE pilots are:
  1. DEDE - Decentralized Energy Data Exchange pilot (lead by Guardtime)
  2. DEFM - Decentralized Energy Flexibility Marketplace pilot (lead by Engineering)
  3. FCS - Food Supply Chain pilot (lead by Synelixis)
  4. Context-Aware Mobile Gaming pilot (lead by Rovio)