NGI Zero Entrust is designed to move beyond the status quo and create a virtuous cycle of innovation through free and open source software, libre hardware and open standards. If we want everyone to use and benefit from the internet to its full potential without holding back, the internet must be built on strong and transparent technologies that allow for permissionless innovation and are equally accessible to all.
NGI Zero Entrust works toward better technologies to restore and maintain European sovereignty and secure democratic ownership of the digital society. The goal is to provide people with concrete new tools and more reliable infrastructure, which grants them privacy and data portability, provides better overall security, and allows them more agency and choice.
We are looking for new ideas and core technologies that help society tackle hard but important challenges, each of which has significant social and economic consequences. The project results become available under an open-source license so that anyone can read and validate the source code, and anyone can use the code to create technology that fits their own purposes.
Reliability, confidentiality, integrity, security, and data portability should be the ‘new normal’ of the internet, something ordinary users should not have to worry about — users should be in control. So, let’s make it happen.
“Resilience, openness and privacy don’t come for free, but they give us freedom, trustworthiness and sustainability in return.”
The effort to fund 9.6 million euros of R&D on technology commons that improve privacy, trustworthiness, resilience and user control and make these available as free/libre/open source software and hardware is a project called NGI Zero Entrust. This is a significant effort by a large group of organisations:
- Association for Progressive Communications – A global network and organisation that strives towards easy and affordable access to a free and open internet to improve the lives of people and create a more just world
- Center for the Cultivation of Technology – A charitable non-profit host organisation for international Free Software projects
- Commons Caretakers – A not-for-profit service provider for the development of Commons
- Free Software Foundation Europe – Association charity aims to empower users to control technology.
- HAN University of Applied Sciences, dept. Inclusive Design & Engineering – one of the core competence building centres of accessibility in the Netherlands, with significant in-house expertise on accessibility auditing.
- NixOS Foundation – Foundation supporting development and use of purely functional configuration management tools, in particular NixOS and related projects
- NLnet Foundation – Grantmaking public benefit organisation founded by pioneers of the early European internet
- Petites Singularités – Non profit organisation working with free sofware and focusing on collective practices
- Radically Open Security – Not-for-profit open source security company
- Tolerant Networks – a Trinity College Dublin campus company focused on robust interoperable communications mechanisms for extreme and unpredictable environments, which delivers its standardisation experience.
In addition we collaborate with:
- Accessibility Foundation – Center of expertise on accessibility of internet and other digital media for all people, including the elderly and people with disabilities
- Translate House – Develops and implements open source localization solutions
- Petites Singularités – Non profit organisation working with free sofware and focusing on collective practices
- Radically Open Security – Not-for-profit open source security company
NGI Zero Entrust Coordinator: Michiel Leenaars, ngizero-coordinator@nlnet.nl
Website: nlnet.nl/entrust
ActivityPub: mastodon.xyz/@NGIZero