Introducing the Iliad Marketplace: Your Ocean Digital‑Twin App Store

Introducing the Iliad Marketplace: Your Ocean Digital-Twin App Store

As we increasingly rely on the oceans for their bounty and navigate their complexities, the need for sophisticated tools to understand, manage, and protect them has become ever more important over time. Enter the Iliad Project and its Digital Twin Marketplace. 

Imagine a one-stop shop - like an App Store, but for digital twins, ocean models, data streams, and analytics tools designed to understand, protect, and harness our seas. It provides Europe with a central hub for discovering tools, data, and communities working on the development of Digital Twins and Models of the Ocean.

The Blue Lobster team spent three and a half years collaborating as a partner on the Iliad Project. We had a multifaceted role in the project, but one of our tasks was the design and development of the Iliad Marketplace.

Why It Matters

The Iliad Project received nearly €18 million in Horizon 2020 funding to support 56 international partners from 18 different countries in collaborating to create Iliad’s vision: a System-of-Systems approach that fuses real-time sensor feeds, Earth observation data, model output, and citizen science toward a unified, semantically aware ecosystem. 

The Iliad project contributed toward the development of a range of digital twins, acting as interactive virtual mirrors, that deliver realistic simulation and prediction capabilities for currents, ecology, pollution, aquaculture, energy extraction, and more. 

The project’s vision was to develop this data-driven approach to ocean governance, research, and sustainable economic development, aligning with the principles of the European Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

When you create that much knowledge, you need somewhere to share and exploit it, and that’s why the marketplace was developed.

The Genesis of the Iliad Marketplace

Central to the Iliad Project is the Iliad Marketplace. Conceived as an "App Store" for the ocean digital twins and models, the marketplace is designed to be the central hub for discovering, accessing, and deploying a wide array of digital services, applications, educational materials, and datasets related to the marine environment. It acts as a bridge, connecting data providers, service developers, end-users and researchers, thereby facilitating the rapid development and widespread adoption of innovative ocean solutions.

Key Features and Benefits of the Iliad Marketplace

The Iliad Marketplace is designed with a robust set of features to ensure its utility and accessibility for a diverse user base, encompassing marine scientists, policymakers and industry professionals.

• Comprehensive Catalogue: The marketplace hosts a vast collection of applications, algorithms, models, datasets, and educational materials, all of which contribute to the understanding and operational use of Ocean Digital Twins.
• Interoperability and Standardisation: A key challenge in ocean data management is the disparate nature of data sources and formats. The Iliad Marketplace promotes tools that offer standardisation and interoperability, ensuring that different applications and datasets can seamlessly work together within a digital twin framework.
• User-Friendly Interface (UI/UX): The marketplace was designed to provide an intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface, making it accessible to users with varying technical backgrounds. Our focus on user experience (UI/UX Design) ensures that discovering tools and services becomes a straightforward process.
• Community-Driven Development: The marketplace is envisioned as a dynamic platform that evolves with contributions from a global community of developers and researchers. This collaborative approach ensures a continuous influx of new and innovative solutions, reflecting the latest advancements in marine science and technology.
• Secure and Reliable Infrastructure: Built upon a secure and scalable infrastructure, the Iliad Marketplace guarantees reliable access to its services.
• Support for Diverse Applications: From environmental monitoring and climate change research to aquaculture management and shipping logistics, the marketplace supports a wide array of applications, demonstrating its versatility and broad applicability.
• Open Platform: Anyone who produces ocean models or twins is welcome to create an account and, using smart wizards, upload their products or services to the platform for the community.
• Metrics: For those listing products or services, comprehensive metrics are available to track how people interact with their listings, as well as advanced tools for monitoring their services. 

Technical Underpinnings: How Blue Lobster Built It

The development of the Iliad Marketplace involved using cutting-edge technologies and best practices in software engineering. Our Web Development team created the platform, focusing on usability, scalability, performance, and security. The architecture is designed to handle large volumes of data and user interactions, ensuring a seamless experience. Key technical considerations included:

• Modular Design: The marketplace utilises a modular architecture, enabling the easy integration of new features and services without disrupting existing functionalities.
• API-First Approach: By adopting an API-first strategy, the marketplace enables seamless communication between various applications, thereby promoting interoperability.
• Cloud-Native Principles: Utilising cloud-native principles ensures that the platform is scalable, resilient, and cost-effective, capable of adapting to growing demands.
• Robust Data Governance: Implemented data governance frameworks to ensure data quality, privacy, and compliance with relevant regulations.

Teck Stack

• Next.js / React for front-end performance and flexibility
• Payload CMS 
• Node.js for server-side rendering and APIs
• MongoDB for data storage
• Tailwind CSS for fast, consistent styling
• Cloud hosted

The Impact and Future of the Iliad Marketplace

The Iliad Marketplace represents a leap forward in our collective ability to understand and manage the ocean. By democratising access to advanced marine data and applications, it empowers a broader range of stakeholders to make informed decisions, fostering sustainable practices and driving innovation.

Looking ahead, the Blue Lobster team remains committed to continually evolving the Iliad Marketplace. We envision a future where the marketplace expands its reach, incorporates even more diverse datasets, and integrates with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to offer even deeper insights. The collaborative spirit of the Iliad Project and its successful completion mean that the great work done will continue.