Digital sovereignty is becoming a concrete requirement for public institutions and organizations across Europe. As the world order is changing and subject to higher volatility, safeguarding critical data and protecting the European rule of law is of paramount importance.
How can we leverage the existing and emerging digital power that we have in Europe in order to ensure that?
The answer is open source. In this talk, you will learn how open source solutions help to regain control over data, infrastructure, and the technologies that we are using. You will learn about the advantages of interoperability over the mere possibility to switch vendors; what is necessary in order to make existing solutions scalable and viable alternative options, and how industry and governments across Europe have to collaborate to reaping best results. The session will include a demonstration of what we do at Nextcloud and our partner ecosystem that empowers public sector customers to implement the solutions that cater best for their requirements.
| When? | Wednesday, 25.2.2026 16:00 – 20.00 |
| Where? | Berner Fachhochschule (Brückenstrasse 73, 3005 Bern) |
Programme:
16:00h Start
16:30h Welcoming by Matthias Stürmer
16:40h Presentation by Frank Karlitschek
17:30h Discussion
18:00h Apéro
Speaker:
Frank Karlitschek
Frank Karlitschek Born in 1973, Frank Karlitschek is the founder and CEO of Nextcloud GmbH. He studied computer science at the University of Tübingen and lives in Berlin. For over 25 years, Frank Karlitschek has been developing open source software and has been involved in various projects, including KDE, where he previously served on the board. In 2016, he founded Nextcloud to create a decentralized, open-source, European alternative to the major cloud services from the United States and China. Frank Karlitschek is an internationally renowned keynote speaker and has delivered talks at institutions such as MIT, Harvard, CERN, and ETH Zurich. He is a Fellow of Open Forum Europe, an Invited Expert at the W3C, and advises the United Nations on open source matters.