Post by Matthias Stürmer
Professor at Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), Head of the Institute for Public Sector Transformation
The 2026 #OpenSource week was very 😅 intense but a great experience: My first 💫 destination was the Univention Summit (https://lnkd.in/eGJfk4HA) in Bremen, invited by Peter Ganten and Alice Horstmann. I had the chance to meet with Ann Cathrin Riedel, Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek, Heinlein Gruppe Co-CEO Jutta Horstmann, Emma GHARIANI of Direction interministérielle du numérique (DINUM), Thüring CIO Milen Starke, Pauline Bessoles and Clément Aubin of XWiki and many more. I learnt about the French 🤝 association TOSIT (The Open Source I Trust) (https://tosit.fr) and the OW2 #OpenSource conference in Paris (https://www.ow2con.org). Later on the trip to Brussels I met with my Institut Public Sector Transformation (IPST) colleagues Pascal Stöckli, Florin Hasler and Lukas Kahwe Smith. My first event was the #OpenSource Award 🏆 Ceremony of the European Open Source Academy (EOSA) (https://lnkd.in/erVij3Qg), meeting Zentrum Digitale Souveränität (ZenDiS) Co-CEO Pamela Krosta-Hartl, Adfinis chairman of the board Michael Moser, Digital Public Goods Alliance CEO Liv Marte Nordhaug, Element - creators of Matrix CEO Amandine Le Pape, Collabora Productivity CEO Michael Meeks, XWiki founder Ludovic Dubost - and very impressed by the 🛠️ work of #Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman! The next day, I participated in the EU #OpenSource Policy 💎 Summit 2026 (https://lnkd.in/ekUE56ZV) with keynote by Schleswig-Holstein. Der echte Norden. minister of digitalization Dirk Schrödter, member of the European Parliament Aura Salla and Alexandra Geese, Leontina Sandu of the European Commission and many more. I'm grateful for the conversations with Astor Nummelin Carlberg and Sachiko Muto of OpenForum Europe, Johan Linåker from RISE, Sebastian Raible of APELL, Paula Grzegorzewska and Mirko Boehm of the Linux Foundation Europe, and many more! (BTW, nice Brussels waffles) And finally, going to FOSDEM was again 🤩 extraordinary: Listening to great talks by Kurt Garloff on Sovereign Cloud Stack, Ben Cerveny from Foundation for Public Code, Rosanna Sibora of OpenProject, Sebastian Kawelke and Frederic Noppe of security of the software supply chain, Alexander Smolianski from ZenDiS about #openDesk and many more speakers was highly insightful. And meeting the OpenProject founders Niels and Wieland Lindenthal was great fun! The final adventure was driving home with the night 🚌 bus of Twiliner (https://www.twiliner.com) directly bringing us from Brussels to Basel - everything worked out smoothly!
