About
The Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative continues to evolve, building on past successes while addressing new challenges in Europe’s digital landscape. As emerging technologies reshape the way we interact online, NGI remains committed to ensuring that the Internet of the future is open, inclusive, trustworthy, and sustainable.
The NGI Forum 2025 will focus on the building of an Open Internet Stack as conducive to European digital sovereignty and users’ empowerment. It will serve as a key platform to bring together innovators, policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders. The Forum will provide an opportunity to reflect on major developments in digital sovereignty, open internet infrastructure, and digital commons, while fostering collaboration between diverse stakeholders shaping Europe’s digital future.
The NGI Forum 2025 is the flagship event of the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative. It brings together some of Europe’s top Internet innovators at work to build an Internet of Trust, empowering end-users with more choice and control over their data and digital identity.
Aims & Objectives
The NGI Forum 2025 aims to:
- Promote the NGI vision and its latest advancements
- Engage key stakeholders in meaningful discussions on internet governance, digital innovation, and policy development
- Facilitate networking and collaboration among the NGI community, industry leaders, and policymakers
- Provide a space for knowledge-sharing on open-source development, trust technologies, and decentralized digital ecosystems
By bringing together experts and innovators, the Forum seeks to strengthen Europe’s position as a leader in digital innovation, ensuring that new technologies align with European values of openness, trust, and security.
What to Expect
Participants can look forward to:
- Workshops on Digital Commons and Open Web Search
- Collaborative discussions on the Open Internet Stack
- Insights from top experts in digital policy and innovation
- Opportunities for networking and exchange
Who Should Attend?
The NGI Forum 2025 welcomes a diverse range of stakeholders, including:
- EU and national policymakers shaping Europe’s digital framework
- Open-source developers and innovators working on privacy, security, and trust technologies
- Researchers and academics exploring digital commons and decentralized infrastructures
- Industry leaders and entrepreneurs driving digital innovation
- Media and civil society organizations advocating for digital rights and governance
Key Details
- Location: Brussels
- Venue: Albert Borschette Congress Center, Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Etterbeek, Belgium
- Dates: 19-20 June 2025
- Format: In-person event with selected sessions available via live-stream
- Language: English (no live interpretation foreseen)
Agenda
19 & 20 June
Day 1 – Thursday |
Activity |
|---|---|
| 8:30 – 9:30 | Registration and networking |
| 9:30 – 9:45 |
Welcome remarks Introduction and Moderation: Dr. Monique Calisti (Martel Innovate, Digital for Planet) |
| 9:45 – 10:45 |
Digital Commons tools for building Digital Sovereignty Introduction and Moderation: Dr. Monique Calisti (Martel Innovate, Digital for Planet)
Wrap-up conclusion: Robbert Van Kranenburg (Martel Innovate) |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00 – 12:00 |
NGI Impact Stories Moderator: Rob Van Kranenburg (Martel Innovate)
|
| 12:00– 13:00 |
Towards a Strategic Agenda for the Digital Commons Introduction and Moderation: Paul Keller (Open Future Foundation)
Wrap-up conclusion: Robbert Van Kranenburg (Martel Innovate) |
| 13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch and networking |
| 14:00 – 14:10 |
Afternoon introduction Master of Ceremony: Jennifer Baker |
| 14:10 – 14:25 |
Keynote from European Commission Speaker: Roberto Viola (DG CONNECT, European Commission) |
| 14:25 – 14:40 |
Keynote speech: Openness and sovereignty Keynote speech: Amandine Le Pape (The Matrix.org Foundation) |
| 14:40 – 15:40 |
Forging European Digital Sovereignty through an Open Internet Stack Moderator: Jennifer Baker (Journalist)
|
| 15:40 – 16:10 | Coffee and networking break |
| 16:10 – 17:10 |
Open Infrastructure, Sovereign Future: Building Europe’s Digital capacity Introduction and Moderation: Sebastian Raible (APELL)
|
| 17:10 – 18:10 |
Building an open and interoperable Web 4.0 enabling Virtual Worlds Moderator: Dr. Monique Calisti (Martel Innovate, Digital for Planet)
|
| 18:10 – 18:20 |
Conclusions of Day 1 Speaker: Thibaut Kleiner (European Commission) |
| 18:20 – 20:00 | Networking cocktail |
Day 2 – Friday |
Activity |
|---|---|
| 08:30-9:00 | Coffee and networking |
| 9:00 – 9:15 |
Introduction to Sovereignty in Web Search Master of Ceremony: Sara Garavelli (CSC – IT Center for Science)
Speaker: Stefan Voigt (Open Search Foundation, DLR)
|
| 9:15 – 9:45 |
Keynote “The first European Open Web Index – Current State and Perspective”, followed by Q&A Speaker: Michael Granitzer (University of Passau)
|
| 9:45 – 10:30 |
Policy perspective “Why Europe needs to Strengthen Sovereignty in Web Search, Analytics and AI” Moderator: Sara Garavelli (CSC – IT Center for Science)
|
| 10:30 – 11:15 |
Applications of an Open Web Index and Web Data Infrastructure, followed by panel discussion Moderator: Sara Garavelli (CSC – IT Center for Science)
|
| 11:15 – 11:45 | Coffee break |
| 11:45 – 12:30 |
Panel discussion “Web Sovereignty – towards a sovereign web tech stack for Europe” Moderator: Stefan Voigt (Open Search Foundation, DLR)
|
| 12:30-13:00 |
Closing session and statement Speakers:
|
| 13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch and networking |
| 14:00-16:30 | Parallel Sessions: |
|
Co-creating the building blocks of the NGI with the end-user at the centre Moderator: Andrés del Álamo Cienfuegos (Fundación Cibervoluntarios)
|
Digital Freedom meets Digital Payments Speaker: Özgür Kesim
|
Managing Your Software Supply Chain with NGI: Security, GenAi, and CRA complianceSpeaker: Philippe Ombredanne (AboutCode)
|
|
Co-creating the building blocks of the NGI with the end-user at the centre Moderator: Andres Del Alamo
|
|
|
Digital Freedom meets Digital Payments Speaker: Özgür Kesim |
|
|
Software and GenAI Supply Chain Security and CRA compliance with NGI Speaker: Philippe Ombredanne |
Speakers
Roberto Viola
DG CONNECT, European Commission
Roberto Viola
Director General @ DG CoNNECT, European Commission
Director General of Directorate General of Communication, Networks, Content and Technology (CONNECT) at the European Commission since 2015 and Deputy Director-General from 2012 to
2015.
From 2005 to 2012 Roberto Viola was Secretary General of the Italian media and communication
regulator AGCOM and Director at AGCOM from 1999 to 2004. He was a member of the BEREC
Board (Body of European Telecom Regulators), and Chairman of the European Regulatory Group
(ERG) in 2007.
From 1985-1999 he held various positions at the European Space Agency (ESA).
Roberto Viola holds a Doctorate in Electronic Engineering and a Masters in Business
Administration (MBA).
Thibaut Kleiner
DG CONNECT, European Commission
Thibaut Kleiner
Director @ DG CONNECT, European Commission
Thibaut Kleiner is the Director for Future Networks in DG Connect. He has worked since 2001 at the European Commission. The first ten years of his career in the Commission were spent in the area of competition policy (merger, antitrust and State aid). In September 2011, he moved to the digital policy area, as advisor of Vice-President Neelie Kroes, in charge of the Digital Agenda, and supervised Internet policies at large (Internet Governance, cybersecurity, cloud, data). From January 2014 to June 2016, he was head of unit in charge of network technologies (5G and Internet of Things) in DG Connect. From June 2016 to December 2019 he was the deputy head of cabinet of Commissioner Oettinger, in charge of Budget and Human Resources and he then came back to DG Connect to head the unit in charge of Research Strategy and Coordination and was subsequently Director for Policy, Strategy and Outreach from December 2020 until March 2025. An economist by training Thibaut holds a Master from HEC Paris and a PhD from the London School of Economics.
Alexandra Geese
European Parliament
Alexandra Geese
MEP @ European Parliament
Alexandra Geese has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019, representing the Greens/EFA group as a leading digital policy expert. Her work focuses on strengthening democracy in the digital age, promoting sustainable digitalisation, and advancing gender equality. A key negotiator of the Digital Services Act, she is a prominent voice on platform regulation and technological sovereignty. Alexandra serves as the Greens/EFA Coordinator on the Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield and is an active member of the Committees on Industry, Research and Energy; Women’s Rights and Gender Equality; and the Delegation for relations with the United States. She is also a substitute member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. Alexandra holds a Master’s degree in Social Sciences with a focus on migration studies from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and a Master of Arts in Conference Interpreting from the Fachhochschule Köln.
Monique Calisti
Martel Innovate & Digital for Planet
Monique Calisti
CEO @ Martel Innovate & Digital for Planet
Dr Monique Calisti is the NGI Outreach Office Director, and the CEO of Martel Innovate and President of the Digital for Planet association. She is a passionate entrepreneur and ICT expert that has been involved in the Next Generation Internet initiative since its inception. With expertise in advanced computer science and communication networks, Monique is actively engaged in several R&I projects helping develop and implement innovation strategies and plans which aim to address societal and environmental challenges by design. Dr Calisti is coordinating or being involved in several Horizon Europe projects working in close collaboration with several organisations committed to a human-centric evolution of our society and economy. Over the last 20 years, Monique has been a speaker and moderator at several science, technology and policy events, and has authored and edited many publications. Dr Calisti holds a PhD in AI from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne and a PhD in Telecommunications from the University of Bologna in Italy.
Denis "Jaromil" Roio
Dyne.org Foundation
Denis "Jaromil" Roio
Director @ Dyne.org foundation
Well-known open-source developer and ethical hacker, Denis is a doctor in philosophy and TEDx speaker, and works as an applied cryptographer and cyber-security expert. Better known as “Jaromil”, he is the founder and director of the Dyne.org foundation and co-founder of the Forkbomb Company, co-chair of the W3C security interest group (SING), and co-founder of the Italian association of cryptographers De Componendis Cifris. Jaromil published the first ever live operating system to boot on a game console “Dynebolic” as 100% free software and is listed among the first contributors to Bitcoin core. He received the Vilém Flusser Award at Transmediale and later became an early promoter of the Vatican’s initiative on Algorethics. He acted as a security officer and technical coordinator for several NGI projects.
Isabelle ZABLIT-SCHMITZ
International Digital Health Expert in communications
Isabelle ZABLIT-SCHMITZ
International Digital Health Expert in communications
Isabelle ZABLIT-SCHMITZ is a seasoned international expert in Digital Health.
She recently served as Deputy General Director of Numeum (French National Trade Organization for digital) and prior to that as Europe & International Director for Digital Health for the French Ministry of Health during 4 years. In that position, she managed EU, WHO, OECD and bilateral partnerships; she was the representative in the eHealth Network co-chaired by France and EU Commission. Her prior career was entirely in the private sector, from industry to digital health, in local and international companies and started 2 companies on her own.
She has been teaching at Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne University and in several other universities, internationally and serves as a board member in institutions. She has served as Executive Committee and Board Member of the French digital federation (Numeum) for 6 years and 8 years at the Board of IHEST (Institute of Advanced Studies in Science and Technology). She has been a Board Member of DIGITALEUROPE and of several start ups and a social care institution.
Stéphanie Schaer
DINUM
Stéphanie Schaer
Directrice @ DINUM
Stéphanie Schaer, senior civil servant, is a General Mining Engineer (“Ingénieur général des Mines” in French), appointed as the French interministerial director of digital affairs (DINUM) in September 2022. A former student of the École Polytechnique (1997), she is also a graduate of the École nationale supérieure des télécommunications/Télécom Paris.
Her professional career took her to the central directorate for information systems security (DCSSI in French, now ANSSI – Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information) from 2002 to 2006, then at the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Employment, where she was in charge of the embedded electronics and then head of the software industry office of the General Directorate for Competitiveness, Industry and Services in 2008. She then became deputy regional director for compagnies, competition, consumption, labor and employment (DIRECCTE in French) for Bourgogne (Bourgogne is a former French administrative region made up of four departments), then for Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (Bourgogne-Franche-Comté is an administrative region in the north-eastern quarter of France). At the same time, in 2015, she launched the State Startup “Signaux Faibles”, which enables early detection of companies in difficulty, to better support them, based on data held by administrations. This service, now deployed nationwide, has benefited from DINUM’s support programs: entrepreneurs of general interest (EIG) and the State Startup incubation program, Beta.gouv.
In 2019, Stephanie Schaer became deputy director of Elisabeth Borne’s office, first at the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Solidarity and then at the Ministry of Labor, where she was subsequently appointed chieff of staff. When Elisabeth Borne was appointed Prime Minister at Matignon in May 2022, Stephanie Schaer became her advisor. On September 26, 2022, she was named Head of the interministerial digital directorate (DINUM in French).
Sean Bohan
OpenWallet Foundation
Sean Bohan
OpenWallet Foundation
A 20+ year career in technology, Sean has built content management systems for ABC, global digital strategies for General Motors, product design for innovative startups and advised investors on where technology is going. The last dozen years have been spent as an entrepreneur and executive member of start-up teams and working on the future of both web sustainability (Mozilla) and decentralized identity (Linux Foundation). As a Community Architect at the OpenWallet Foundation he works with open source developers, enterprises and users in bringing these technologies to the world.
Niko Bonnieure
NextGraph
Niko Bonnieure
Author of NextGraph.org
Niko Bonnieure is a software engineer specialized in encryption, local-first and linked data technologies. After working in big data startups for several years, and following the Snowden revelations in 2013, he decided to quit those jobs and dedicate his time to building a decentralized platform for secure and private apps based on graph databases. In the last years, he has been building NextGraph.org, an ecosystem of malleable apps and a framework for developers who want to create decentralized, secure and interoperable apps. Niko is a strong advocate for Digital Sovereignty in Europe, and for Free and Open Source Software.
Amandine Le Pape
The Matrix.org Foundation
Amandine Le Pape
The Matrix.org Foundation
Amandine is COO and co-founder of Element (https://element.io), an open source, secure and sovereign communication platform built on Matrix (https://matrix.org), the open standard for secure and open communications. Element brings sovereign communications to heterogeneous organisations who can’t rely on commercial cloud offerings, let alone non end-to-end encrypted ones.
Matrix, which Amandine also co-founded, is a unique initiative aiming to democratise secure online communication and solve the problem of fragmentation in current Chat, VoIP, VR and IoT technologies. Matrix aims to create an ecosystem that makes open real-time-communication as universal and interoperable as email, and brings the power back to the user on choosing who they trust with their data and how they want to communicate. Element delivers Matrix solutions to millions of users, including NATO, the UN, the German Armed Forces, the US Navy and private companies like Mozilla.
Amandine is also a founding member of the European Open Source Academy and the lead of the Business and Impact unit within the Academy.
Nina Müller
Nextcloud
Nina Müller
Business Project Manager @ NextCloud
Nina holds a degree in English and sociology and has worked in various roles and industries such as SaaS, weather or music. A non-code contributor to open source, Nina has led tech conferences like Berlin Buzzwords for many years and is passionate about elevating privacy standards. At Nextcloud, she is supporting that mission to give people back control over their data and help strengthen digital sovereignty.
Stefan Voigt
Open Search Foundation, DLR
Stefan Voigt
Chairman & CEO of the Open Search Foundation e.V. and Coordinator of the OpenSearch@DLR project
Dr. Stefan Voigt has been actively working since 2017 on networking research and data centres as well as other stakeholders from industry, politics and civil society in order to jointly design a distributed and open web search infrastructure for Europe. In 2018, he founded the Open Search Foundation e.V. together with other experts and supporters and has been its Chairman and Managing Director ever since. Among other tasks, he coordinates the contributions to various research and development projects. Since 2000, he has been a research associate at the Earth Observation Center of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), where he has coordinated numerous national, European and international research projects and collaborations. He currently heads the OpenSearch@DLR project for unbiased searching and retrieval of scientific information on the web. Dr. Stefan Voigt studied geography, physics, remote sensing and urban planning at LMU and TUM in Munich. He received his PhD in geosciences from the University of Bern in 2000.
Michael Granitzer
University Passau
Michael Granitzer
Professor for Data Science @ University Passau
Prof. Dr. Michael Granitzer holds the Chair of Data Science at University of Passau since 2017 and was full professor for Media Computer Science at the University of Passau since 2012. His research interest is on applied machine learning, web information retrieval and natural language processing. He published over 300 mostly peer-reviewed publications including journal publications, book chapters and books in the above-mentioned fields. Previously, he was Scientific Director of the applied research centern “Know-Center” in Graz and assistant professor at the Knowledge Technology Institute of Graz University of Technology . He managed several nationally funded and European research projects on topics like federated search and recommender systems, linked open data, and information retrieval. Besides his research, he actively supports young innovators and startups in startup programs at the University of Passau. Currently, he is the coordinator of the Horizon Europe project “OpenWebSearch.eu”.
Sara Garavelli
CSC – IT Center for Science
Sara Garavelli
Strategic European Engagement & Coordination Development Manager @ CSC – IT Center for Science
Sara Garavelli, Strategic European Engagement and Coordination Development Manager, CSC-IT Center for Science
Sara works at CSC-IT Center for Science in the International Collaboration and Partnerships Unit where she leads the team responsible for CSC’s strategic engagement in European initiatives related to research and education. Examples of such initiatives include EOSC, European Common Data Spaces, AI Factories, Destination Earth, GÉANT and EuroHPC. Sara also serves as Director of the EOSC Association from 2022 and she is a member of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Council from 2024.
Per Öster
CSC – IT Center for Science
Per Öster
Director Advanced Computing Facility @ CSC – IT Center for Science
Per Öster is Director of CSC Advanced Computing Facility which hosts, operates, support, and develops the Finnish national computing infrastructure and the EuroHPC supercomputer LUMI. Öster represents CSC in a several international initiatives and organisations: EOSC Association; the European Collaborative Data Infrastructure EUDAT; FENIX RI of federated data repositories and supercomputing systems; the board of ELIXIR, the European bio-informatics infrastructure; and Knowledge Exchange, a partnership to promote open scholarship and improve services for higher education and research in Europe.
Per Öster has more than 30 years of experience in computational science from both academia and industry. He has a doctorate in physics from the Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg/Chalmers University of Technology.
Jan Hajič
OpenEuroLLM, Charles University
Jan Hajič
Project coordinator Open Euro LLM, Professor @ Charles University
Jan Hajič is a professor of Computational Linguistics at the Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics, School of Computer Science, Charles University, Prague, Czechia. His interests span fundamental formal linguistic problems, machine translation, deep language understanding, and applications. He has built resources for many languages with rich linguistic annotation; he is currently leading a multi-institutional research infrastructure on open language resources in Czechia, LINDAT/CLARIAH-CZ, and coordinating a EU projects on building LLMs, HPLT and OpenEuroLLM. His work experience includes both industrial research (IBM Research Yorktown Heights, NY, USA) and academia (Charles University, Prague, Czechia, Johns Hopkins University and University of Colorado, USA, Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Studies at the Norway Academy of Sciences, and others). He has published more than 200 papers with about 16,000 citations. He is a chair or member of many international and national boards and committees.
Wolfgang Oels
Ecosia
Wolfgang Oels
COO @ Ecosia
After his Engineering and Business studies, Wolfgang worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company and subsequently held various senior leadership positions in the solar industry. Since 2016, he has been the COO of Ecosia, the biggest European search engine. He also serves as Director for “European Search Perspective,” an emerging competitor in the Internet Search industry, building a sovereign, European web index.
Gaël Duval
Murena
Gaël Duval
CEO @ Murena
Gaël Duval is a software engineer and entrepreneur. In 1998, he initiated Mandrake Linux, the first desktop Linux distribution aimed at a mainstream audience. More recently, he created /e/OS, a completely de-Googled and more sustainable mobile operating system that respects personal data and humans, which is marketed in Murena smartphones and cloud services.
Robbert Van Kranenburg
Martel Innovate
Rob Van Kranenburg
Martel Innovate
Rob van Kranenburg is a writer who founded #IoT Council in 2009. He is a Member of General-Purpose AI Code of Practice EU Group and a working Group Member of The INPACE Hub on Smart Cities. IoT Council REG number in the EP Transparency Register is: REG 010977093819-34. He works as a Senior Policy and Communication Expert at Martel Innovate. In March 2025 he published ” Statecraft and Policymaking in the Age of Digital Twins. Digital Democracy and the Internet of Things.” (Springer Brief in Political Science).
Nicola Rustignoli
SCION Association
Nicola Rustignoli
Co-CEO @ SCION Association
Nicola Rustignoli is the co-CEO of the SCION Association, an industry consortium advancing SCION, a secure, reliable Internet architecture used in finance and critical infrastructure. The Association promotes global adoption by developing open technical specifications and maintaining the open-source SCION implementation. Before this role, Nicola worked in the network security industry and was a research assistant with the Network Security Group at ETH Zürich, where he contributed to The Complete Guide to SCION and several key research projects.
Emmanuel Cartier
EC-JRC
Emmanuel Cartier
EC-JRC
Emmanuel Cartier is currently a Research Project Officer at the European Commission, within the Joint Research Centre’s Text and Data Mining unit (T5). His work focuses on Natural Language Processing and includes contributions to text mining modules (named entities, events, weak signals, sentiment and emotion, etc.) plugged in the European Media Monitor (EMM). Prior to this, he was an assistant professor in Computational Linguistics in Paris at Université Sorbonne Paris Nord. His academic research centered on named entity recognition and neologism tracking, on neologism tracking, leading to the development of the Neoveille web platform for automatic detection and analysis of new words. His broader research interests include text mining and information extraction.
Philippe Ombredanne
AboutCode
Philippe Ombredanne
Lead maintainer @ AboutCode
Philippe is a passionate FOSS hacker on a mission to make it easier and safer to reuse FOSS code. He is the lead maintainer of AboutCode (https://aboutcode.org), building best-in-class open source Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools for open source management and security compliance. Philippe is also a co-founder of SPDX and the creator of Package-URL (PURL), a standard to identify packages across ecosystems used extensively throughout the industry.
Alina Kadlusky
Open AR Cloud Europe
Alina Kadlusky
Managing Director & Director of Communications @ Open AR Cloud Europe
Alina is a Research associate at the Virtual Technology department of the Applied University Mittweida, focusing on XR research and EU grants.
Alina specialises in spatial computing and XR research, leveraging the creation of a human-centred future in computing while contributing to publications and standards.
She’s also a founding board member of theSafeZone e.V, an initiative helping teenagers overcome mental health challenges with VR, immersive technology, and quick access to therapists, and a founding member of XRSI Europe.
Alina set up and has been leading the EU activities of Open AR Cloud Europe gUG as managing director through EU-funded research projects like NGI Atlantic, NGI Search and the recently Horizon Europe-funded project XR4Human.
Ludovic Dubost
XWiki
Ludovic Dubost
Founder and CEO @ Xwiki
With more than 20 years of experience in the software industry, Mr Dubost has been recognized one of the Top 100 notable French programmers for his ongoing involvement in the Open Source world and the collaborative tools market.
After graduating from Ecole Polytechnique and Telecom Paris, Mr Dubost began his career as a software architect at Netscape Communications Europe. Later he has joined NetValue as CTO, where Mr Dubost worked until 2002 when the company has been acquired by Nielsen / NetRatings. In 2004, he created XWiki and founded XWiki SAS to build a competitive Open Source company in the collaboration software market.
XWiki SAS aims to build the best Knowledge and Collaboration software in this space, as well as innovate through breakthrough projects such as CryptPad, the first Zero Knowledge real-time collaborative pad.
Felix Reda
GitHub
Felix Reda
Director of Developer Policy @ GitHub
Felix Reda (he/they) is the Director of Developer Policy at GitHub. He has been shaping digital policy for over ten years, including serving as a Member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2019 and working with the strategic litigation NGO Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF) on the enforcement of fundamental rights online. His areas of interest encompass copyright, freedom of expression, and the sustainability of the open-source ecosystem. Felix serves on the board of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF). He holds an M.A. in Political Science and Communications Science from the University of Mainz, Germany.
Fabien Benetou
Iterative Explorations SCS
Fabien Benetou
Iterative Explorations SCS
Fabien Benetou is a software prototypist focusing on virtual and augmented reality, leveraging open-source and interoperability on the Web. Until recently he has worked for the European Parliament leading the XR projects of the innovation unit, supported the UNICEF Innovation Fund on WebXR, worked for Mozilla on its social virtual world, etc. Currently Fabien is contributing to the Future of Text in XR project via an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, contributing to a recurring NG0 project, “xrsh – Interactive text/OS terminal inside WebXR”, and just recently started his own “Federating pedagogical immersive experiences” thanks to the NLNet Foundation and thus an NG0 supported project.
Karin Lammers
Independent Consultant
Karin Lammers
Independent Consultant
Karin Lammers helps Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects with their governance, strategy, documentation and community processes as a freelancer. She has a background in education and governance and is currently learning programming language Rust. She is part of the maintainer teams of FOSS projects Ariel OS and RIOT and is a member of the Digital Commons Task Force (DCTF), an advisory body of the NGI Commons project.
Karolin Varner
Rosenpass
Karolin Varner
Founder @ Rosenpass
Karolin Varner looks back on a fourteen year in tech and sciences. Early her career, she worked both for small start-ups and major tech companies. In 2024, she started working at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, where she is dedicated to scientific research on cryptographic network protocols and the exploration of software development methods for cryptographic applications.
In 2021, she began development of Rosenpass, a solution for post-quantum-secure VPNs based on the widely used WireGuard VPN. Rosenpass enjoys a strong reputation within the scientific community for high-assurance cryptography and sets standards for post-quantum-secure VPNs. Motivated by this success and having found a group of reliable collaborators for her project, she founded Rosenpass e.V. in 2023 to provide governance for the Rosenpass project and as a institute for translation research in cryptography.
Stuart Mackintosh
Open Digital Consulting Co
Stuart Mackintosh
Business & digital technology consultant @ Open Digital Consulting Co
Stuart Mackintosh is a recognised thought leader in open source and digital innovation, with extensive experience delivering high-impact, high-value projects across Europe, UK and beyond. He is the founder of the Mackintosh Group, comprising of Open Digital Consulting, Cloudient, and XI Software—where he leads with a values-driven approach grounded in openness, integrity, and creativity.
Deeply immersed in the European Union’s digital ecosystem and open source communities, Stuart contributes to shaping open source and standards policy across UK and EU. His work sits at the intersection of technology, policy, and entrepreneurship, supporting the development of sovereign, human-centric digital infrastructure.
Stuart is committed to creating meaningful impact through systems design, mentoring future innovators and leaders, and supporting teams in turning complex visions into clear, effective solutions. He draws inspiration from principles such as the Paradoxical Commandments, focusing on what’s right and meaningful, even when it’s difficult. A sought-after advisor and leader, Stuart regularly engages with public institutions, companies, and civil society on the role of open technology in advancing the public good.
Michiel Leenaars
NLnet
Michiel Leenaars
Director of Strategy @ NLnet
Michiel Leenaars is Director of Strategy at NLnet. He leads NGI Zero, a family of research programmes which is part of the Next Generation Internet initiative. He is involved with a number of organisations such as The Commons Conservancy (chair), OpenDoc Society (vice-chair), Petities.nl foundation (treasurer) and Technology Commons Trust . In 2022 he was awarded the NLUUG Lifetime Achievement Award.
Lukasz Klejnowski
Assistant to MEP Michal Kobosko
Lukasz Klejnowski
Assistant to MEP Michal Kobosko
Since 2009, advisor in the European Parliament. He has extensive expertise in the single market and consumer protection policies in the EU in the digital single market, telecommunications, and e-commerce. He was leading technical negotiations on important legislative files, in particular, on roaming, geoblocking, online dispute resolution and vehicle safety. Collaborator of Renew Europe MEP, Michał Kobosko. He graduated from the Jagiellonian University with a degree in European studies.
Paul Keller
Open Future Foundation
Paul Keller
Director of Policy @ Open Future Foundation
Paul is the Director of Policy at Open Future. He has 20+ years of experience as a media activist, open policy advocate and systems architect to improve access to knowledge and culture. A political scientist by training, Paul has a deep understanding of the digital transformation’s political, social and legal implications. Prior to founding Open Future Paul was co-director of Kennisland, an Amsterdam-based think-tank working on issues related to the knowledge economy. Before joining Kennisland in 2007, Paul worked at Waag as head of the Public Research program. Paul is a research fellow at the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam, a board member of Public Spaces and sits on the advisory boards of the Glushko & Samuelson Information Law and Policy Lab and the Europeana Foundation.
Sebastian Raible
APELL – The European Open Source Software Business Association
Sebastian Raible
Director EU Government Affairs @ APELL – The European Open Source Software Business Association
Sebastian Raible is Director EU Government Affairs for APELL – The European Open Source Software Association. Sebastian is a computer scientist and political consultant. He has previously worked as policy advisor on data protection, consumer rights, and digital policy in the European Parliament. Most recently, Sebastian was part of the Parliament’s negotiating team for the Artificial Intelligence Act, the Product Liability Directive, and the Data Act. As a long-time advocate for Open Source and the emancipatory use of technology, he represents APELL in Brussels.
Robin Berjon
IPFS Foundation
Robin Berjon
IPFS Foundation
Robin Berjon is a technologist specialising in the governance of digital tech. He is deputy director of the IPFS Foundation. Previously he was VP of Data Governance at The New York Times, where he worked on privacy and safeguarding media independence, and Vice-Chair of the board of the World Wide Web Consortium. His work focuses on building durable democratic governance of technology so that our digital sphere starts operating in the public interest at the planetary scale.
Pascal Steichen
Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity
Pascal Steichen
Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity
Founder and CEO of the Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity. Since 20 years, Pascal is involved in the main cybersecurity initiatives of the Luxembourg Government, CYBERSECURITY Luxembourg, the national platform to foster and empower the Luxembourg Ecosystem in the field of cybersecurity, being his latest achievement.
Laureate of the Information Security Personality of the Year award in 2017, Pascal Steichen has dedicated his professional career to cybersecurity. In 2022 he was elected as the first chairman of the ECCC (European Cybersecurity Competence Centre).
Renaud Chaput
Mastodon
Renaud Chaput
CTO @ Mastodon
Renaud has been Mastodon’s CTO since 2023 and has lead the efforts to grow the project into the best european alternative to the big social network platforms.
Full-stack developer and system administrator, Renaud is passionate about building and scaling infrastructure of fast moving projects or companies. He has been contributing to various open source initiatives for over 15 years and has organized the « SysadminDays » conference in Paris for several years.
Besides his position at Mastodon missions he also works on Notos, a photo-sharing platform he co-founded, with privacy and respect of personal data at its core.
Quentin Adam
Clever Cloud
Quentin Adam
co-founder and CEO @ Clever Cloud
Quentin Adam is the co-founder and CEO of Clever Cloud, a tech company based in Nantes that specializes in hosting, deployment, and automated application management.
Committed to a strong digital future, he advocates for an independent, sustainable, and ambitious European vision of technology. In his talks, he challenges global tech power dynamics and promotes the development of a robust, innovative, and strategically autonomous European digital industry.
As a regular speaker, he covers topics at the intersection of technology, economics, and digital sovereignty.