OpenForum Europe

Open Source Driving the European Digital Decade | Sweden
2023-04-18 10:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Internetstiftelsen, Hammarby Kaj 10D, Stockholm, 12030, Sweden
Due to high demand to participate, we only accept registrations for in-person to a waiting list.
The event will be live streamed.
On 18 April, 2023, OpenForum Europe, the Swedish Internet Foundation, NOSAD (Network Open Source and Data), Open Source Sweden, Red Hat and the Foundation for Public Code are hosting a one-day conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Following the events in Toulouse, France, and Brno, Czech Republic, we are now bringing together European actors in the Nordic capital to continue the discussion of the role of open technologies in shaping our shared digital future.
At the European level, the discussions of open source as a tool to tackle our shared digital challenges have matured. There is broad agreement that the relevance goes beyond cost-savings for the public sector. Today, open source plays a central role in strategies for increased sovereignty, competitiveness and innovation.
Venue: Internetstiftelsen, Hammarby kaj 10D, Stockholm, Sweden.

The EU Open Source Policy Summit 2023
2023-02-03 09:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Brussels)
Europe’s key to success is collaboration. In the digital sphere, collaboration can be spelled Open Source. Open Source is intricately linked to Europe’s collaborative culture. This has made Europe an Open Source champion. With the Open Source innovation model being a fundamental building block of our digital reality, Europe is well-placed to achieve its digital policy goals using Open Source as a strategic tool.
The EU Open Source Policy Summit 2023 will explore Europe’s opportunities when levering these modes of technological collaboration at scale. Looking at digital policy through this lens, open and collaborative innovation is a source of optimism.
2023 will be the ninth year OpenForum Europe hosts its Open Source policy event right before FOSDEM. While Europe and the EU is our vantage point, this hybrid event welcomes speakers and participants from across the globe.

Open Source as Sustainable Digital Infrastructure
2022-11-21 10:00 - 14:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Waterfront Congress Centre, Stockholm, Sweden, Nils Ericsons Plan 4, Stockholm, 111 64, Sweden
As part of the Internet Days in Stockholm, Sweden, OpenForum Europe, together with the Swedish Public Sector Network Open Source and Data, are organising a track on Cybersecurity Security, sustainability and Digital Sovereignty. Open source software is a critical and extensive part of our common digital infrastructure. It presents both opportunities and risks. Opportunities such as enhanced interoperability of infrastructure and services within and across borders, as well as reducing dependencies and lock-in to individual vendors and system solutions. The risks stem from sustainability issues and include the fact that many open source applications are maintained by volunteers and there is a general under-investment in maintenance. This in a rapidly changing geopolitical and digital environment, where vulnerabilities, introduced knowingly or unknowingly, are increasingly at risk of being exploited by malicious third parties with potentially major consequences.
As the public sector intends to reuse more of each other’s digital infrastructure, there is a growing need to ensure that what we do is secure. Therefore, this thematic track aims to show the extent of open source software in our own and shared digital infrastructure, and its importance for our digital sovereignty and cybersecurity.
In January 2023, Sweden will take over the Presidency of the Council of the EU. Already today, we can see some challenges and areas that will be important to address in the public sector in the coming years.
This track will look at these questions from an international perspective and the work being done globally within, for example, the US government in collaboration with the technology industry, the cross-sector collaboration taking place in the private sector, and the transatlantic work between North American and European countries that is beginning to take shape. This will be followed by a panel taking a European perspective. Finally, we will delve deeper into how Sweden can lead and contribute to the development of a sustainable digital infrastructure with open software as a central building block.

Making the AI Act Work: Views on Standardisation and Open Source
2022-10-25 17:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Avenue des Arts 56, 1000 Brussels, Avenue des Arts 56, Brussels, 1000, Belgium
This event will take place in-person in Brussels at Avenue des Arts 56 and will be followed by social drinks.
The AI Act is clearly one of the most complex pieces of legislation to recently arrive in the Parliament, with intense debate on how to fulfil the regulation’s objectives and ensure that effective enforcement is possible. It has required understanding not only of what AI is today, but also consideration for what is needed to allow the development of the AI of tomorrow and how to be ready for its consequences. Standardisation and Open Source are where regulation meets the technology.
MEP Sergey Lagodinsky (Greens) will give an opening statement, which will then be followed by two panels:
Our first panel will explore the question of how existing standards and standards organisations will play a role for the effectiveness of the AI Act. The speakers will touch on the implications of the current proposals being negotiated, but also the future compliance of the AI Act.
Our second panel will explore the implications of the AI Act for open source development. Open source communities today are developing best practices for responsible AI, practices that can inform “state of the art” compliance in the Act. At the same time, the Act presents challenges to developers building open source AI components and systems.

Open Source Driving the European Digital Decade | Czech Presidency
2022-09-16 09:30 - 18:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Faculty of Informatics Masaryk University, Botanická 68A, Brno, Brno-Královo Pole-Ponava, 602 00, Czech Republic

OSPOs! New Approaches to Public Sector Open Source
2022-06-20 18:00 - 21:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Hotel Mercure Toulouse Centre Compans, Boulevard Lascrosses, 8 Esp. Compans Caffarelli, Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, 31000, France
OFE is excited to invite you to the release event of our report on Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs) in Government. The paper will be discussed over cocktails at the Hotel Mercure Toulouse Centre Compans in Toulouse (France), the evening before the Digital Assembly, the event co-hosted by the French Government and the European Commission.
It is an opportunity for stakeholders in the European digital universe to discuss and share their experiences regarding progress on the digital single market and digital policies.
During this event, we will present and discuss our soon-to-be-published report. Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs) are being built in the public sector (such as the City of Paris, the European Commission and the French government) in order to provide the capacity, skills and engagement needed to be a part of the open source ecosystem in a meaningful way. For policymakers and especially CIOs they are a tool for executing on policy objectives where open source can be an enabler, such as digital sovereignty, cybersecurity and public sector innovation in general. As such, they can help deliver value for citizens around the world at scale.
Following the panel debate with members of the report’s expert group, we invite you to the cocktail reception at the same venue.
Please respect the current COVID19 regulations and stay at home if you feel unwell or might have contracted the virus.

Open Tech Afterwork
2022-04-26 18:30 - 21:30 (Europe/Brussels) | Ginette, Pl. du Luxembourg 5, Brussels, 1050, Belgium
Join the informal afterwork of the Open Tech community in Brussels

Open Strategic Autonomy: Public and Private Sector Perspectives
2022-03-23 16:00 - 18:15 (Europe/Brussels) | Virtual
The increased attention on digital autonomy stems from concerns regarding user-control of IT infrastructures, services and products that our economy depends on. In a soon-to-be-published paper by OpenForum Europe, we outline how these concerns are nothing new to people following the open technology space. Put simply, open technologies, in particular open source and open standards, give the user and developer the control that at a societal level delivers digital autonomy.
At this event, the speakers and panellists will look at how open technologies can deliver digital autonomy from different perspectives, such as that of the public sector, vendors of open technologies and the citizens and consumers that engage with the products or services.
Seen from these different perspectives, particular advantages of open tech emerge. They offer control and autonomy for the user, without limiting an openness to commerce, competition and innovation. They lower barriers for SMEs to enter the market and compete at different levels of the technology stack. They bring transparency, accountability and security to the end user.
That said, there are policy challenges facing both the IT departments of public and private organisations, as well as the policy-making arms of national governments. Culture change, strengthening know-how and capacity, as well as outdated IT procurement laws are currently hindrances, albeit surmountable, to realise autonomy, innovation and economic growth with open technologies.

How can Openness find its place in the Data Act?
2022-03-15 16:00 - 17:30 (Europe/Brussels) | Virtual
Data has a key role in achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal and in the EU Recovery Plan, given its potential for innovation and job creation, as well as its contribution to the efficiency and international competitiveness of industries across all sectors. The Data Act aims to create fairness in the data economy by addressing the challenges of access to and use of data in specific situations, including B2B and B2G contexts.
Part of the file addresses the unfair market practices and vendor lock-in in cloud services. Moreover, it examines potential policy options to prevent abuse of contractual imbalances that hinder fair data sharing between businesses and end users.
With its European strategy for data, published on 19 February 2020, the Commission has formulated a vision for the data economy. It will work towards the creation of a Single Market for data, where data flows between countries and sectors, where data is available for use in full respect of European values and rules, and where there are fair, practical and clear rules for access and use of the data. The Data Strategy also underlined that the EU should ensure an open, but assertive approach towards international data flows, based on European values.
Against this background, the Data Act is expected to lay out a regulatory framework for easier cloud switching and model contract terms, complemented by a contractual fairness test for B2B data sharing.
The event will deep dive into the role of openness. Concretely, the discussion will revolve around how the working-methods of the open source community, such as in drafting internationally accepted and respected data sharing licences based on open source principles, can serve as best practices for the European Commission’s policy options on incentivising data sharing.
Furthermore, the panel will discuss the role of open source for cloud and why it is a fundamental building block for cloud switching, to the benefit of businesses and consumers alike. The role of open standards and open APIs to establish a framework for efficient data interoperability will also be tackled.

The EU Open Source Policy Summit 2022
2022-02-04 09:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Brussels)
At the EU Open Source Policy Summit, global technology and policy leaders come together to discuss how collaboration and competition are being rethought as we are innovating to solve the complex global challenges we are facing collectively.

OFA Symposium 2021: The European Commission Open Source Study
2021-11-16 10:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Brussels)

EU Open Source Policy Community Meeting 2021
2021-09-24 13:00 - 16:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Virtual
OFE is delighted to invite you to the EU Open Source Policy Community Meeting 2021 on 24th of September from 13:00 to 16:00 CEST.
As we have done now for many years, we will provide an open space to engage on topics brought by new and old members of the EU Open Source Policy Community. This is a great time to gather to discuss and share recent developments and insights. Open Source is higher up than ever on the agenda of the EU policy makers, which makes it essential to foster and further debate between and within the political and technical domains.

The focus will be talks for you, the community participants, and we encourage you to bring your stories and thoughts on EU Open Source policy matters!
This event is powered by Element.

Open Sourcing the Green Deal: Decarbonisation of Energy Grids
2021-06-29 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Brussels)

Open Hardware 101: An Introduction for Policymakers
2021-06-17 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Brussels) | Virtual

A New Business Model for the Internet: How a Strong Digital Markets Act Can Enable SMEs to Deliver a Better Internet
2021-06-16 17:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Viritual
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) holds the potential to restore the competitiveness of the platform market needed to untether the European internet industry. Moving away from walled gardens by addressing issues such as limitations to interoperability and anticompetitive default settings is what is needed to help the European internet industry scale, allowing for different, user-centric business models that respect European values to thrive. Getting the DMA right is paramount for both the fair competition in the markets and the EU’s sovereignty.
The European internet ecosystem is characterised by a multitude of challengers, rather than incumbents. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as start-ups make up the company landscape. Within this ecosystem, however, lies the potential to provide an user-centric internet at scale. In a market where platforms compete on the merits of their services, society, not just the market incumbents, benefit from the network effects.
The DMA, if policymakers get it right, will play an important role in creating the conditions for an interoperable and user-friendly platform ecosystem to grow. A competitive digital market is one where European innovative companies, in both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) markets, can challenge the incumbents without artificial impediments such as selective interoperability and default settings.
At this event, senior executives from Open-Xchange, ProtonMail and Element will make the case for a strong and well-enforced DMA, and outlining how the EU internet industry can capitalise on the possibilities and opportunities that would follow.

Accelerating the EU economy: Findings from the Open Source Impact Study
2021-05-20 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Brussels)

Digitising European Industry: Open Source Driving the Automotive Sector
2021-05-04 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Brussels)

The Case for OSPOs in Government & Universities
2021-03-31 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Brussels)
The establishment of Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) to achieve open source goals is gaining momentum in the public sector, in academia and beyond. We see these developments on a city, regional, national and supranational level. This matters because the OSPO construct was a key enabler in unlocking vast amounts of value for the ICT industry. Now the question is how OSPOs in government, academia and NGOs can help deliver value for citizens the world over at scale.
In industry, OSPOs are well established and typically provide legal and support services for an organisation’s open source efforts. Generally speaking, OSPOs are built to achieve and accelerate policy goals which rely on open source and open tools. This includes systemic policy goals including privacy, security, trust, diversity, participation, and access to technology.
At this event, the panelists will outline the state of thinking around institutionalising open source work in the academic and public sectors (and beyond) and discuss how different OSPO configurations can help institutions to:

respond to demands for greater transparency and trust in technology and public institutions
accelerate digital transformation
participate, lead, and apply locally the enormous rivers of global innovation generated by OSS
support the upskilling of EU’s developer community to participate in and lead in global OSS efforts
enhance the EU’s strategic autonomy in the digital field

Virtual Debate: Interoperability in the DMA and DSA
2021-03-29 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Brussels)

OFE Lounge Series: Standardisation and Open Source
2021-03-18 15:30 - 18:00, 2021-03-11 15:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Brussels)
Discussing the evolving role of
Open Source in Standardisation

Open Source and Smart Cities
2021-03-17 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Brussels)
With 68% of the world’s population estimated to be living in urban environments by 2050 – and a simultaneous projected rise in global population to nearly 10B people – the need to rethink our approach to civic infrastructure is ever more pressing.
How can we architect smart cities, with open source thinking, standards, data and technology, to best serve the needs of all of their residents? How can we engineer smart systems to respect citizen privacy while still delivering services effectively? What’s the most ecologically friendly way to deal with the ever increasing volume of data that smart cities and the smart objects that connect to them will generate?
At this event, we will explore innovations of today in the smart city arena, some thoughts for creating the best of all possible futures, and the role of public private partnerships in delivering privacy respecting value to residents of these cities of the future, based on open source, open standards, and open data.

The EU Open Source Policy Summit 2021
2021-02-05 13:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Virtual
OpenForum Europe and the Linux Foundation are excited to invite you to the EU Open Source Policy Summit 2021

OSPOs in Government - Workshop with Public Officials
2021-01-11 14:00 - 16:00 (Europe/Brussels)
Invite-only workshop for public officials on OSPOs in Government
Session 1: European Government OSPOs
Session 2: Public Administration Open Source at Scale

Government Open Source for the Digital Decade - Workshop with Public Officials
2020-12-08 15:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Viritual
Invite-only workshop for public officials working with Open Source Software and Hardware

Turning Ethical AI into Technical Reality - The Role of Open Source and Standardisation
2020-11-18 13:30 - 15:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Virtual

Europe’s Digital Decade: Empowered by Open Source
2020-11-05 14:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Brussels) | Virtual
Thank you for participating in this event! We were impressed with the engagement of our audience and glad to see such an interest in the future of Open Source policy. You can consult the slides of our study team’s presentation – feel free to share it.

Virtual Debate: Interoperability and the EU Digital Markets Act
2020-11-04 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Brussels)

EU Open Source Policy Meeting 2020 (Pre-FOSDEM)
2020-01-31 09:00 - 13:00 (Europe/Paris) | Rue d’Egmont 11, 1000 Bruxelles, Rue d'Egmont 11, 1000, Bruxelles, Belgium

A Conversation with Susan Landau
2019-11-07 17:00 - 19:30 (Europe/Paris) | Avenue des Arts 56, 1000 Brussels, Avenue des Arts 56, Brussels, 1000, Belgium
