Celebrating five years of strengthening open digital infrastructure

The feasibility study, by Adriana Groh, Katharina Meyer, Fiona Krakenbürger, and Eileen Wagner, set out to establish a public-sector approach that gives critical digital infrastructure the same priority as roads, water, and energy. They developed a blueprint for a public investment model that recognizes open source technologies as the foundation of innovation, competition, and security for societies and economies: as the infrastructure of the 21st century. To celebrate all of this, more than 150 guests came together in Berlin on Monday evening, among them policy makers, open source maintainers, and representatives from government, industry, civil society, and research. With the Sovereign Tech Agency, we have created a globally recognized instrument that can—and should—help shape this transformation.” Erik Möller, Director of Programs at the Sovereign Tech Agency, traced our journey in his talk: from a niche topic that few had on their radar five years ago to a critical issue that now sits on political agendas worldwide. This foundational layer was the subject of the panel discussion that followed, “Below the model: which open infrastructure sustains sovereign AI?” Marco-Alexander Breit (Director General of Digital Policy and Economic Affairs at the Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation, BMDS), Hendrik Hofstadt (CTO of Langdock), Dr. Henriette Litta (Managing Director of Open Knowledge Foundation Germany) discussed the geopolitical and industrial-policy aspects of open source investment, the challenges that open source and open data experts face every day, and how improving their conditions can contribute directly to more sovereignty for Germany and Europe.