Digital autonomy has been at the heart of the public policy debate in the EU for a while now, with Commissioner Thierry Breton himself stating in 2021 that “in the digital decade, Open Source will be a key element to achieve Europe’s resilience and digital sovereignty”. In this session, which will also include an open debate with the audience, we will analyze the opportunities for open source when it comes to contributing to building Europe’s technological sovereignty, but also the challenges that this new policy landscape poses for the open source ecosystem in Europe (and beyond).
Gaël Blondelle joined the Eclipse Foundation in 2013 and now serves as Chief Membership Officer. He has been involved in the open source arena for more than 18 years in a number of key roles. Gaël co-founded an open source start-up and worked as its Chief Technology Officer. Gaël then worked in business development for an open source systems integration company and managed highly strategic research IT projects aiming to create open source ecosystems for major industrial players. Gaël joined the Eclipse Foundation to pursue his goal of helping more companies work in open source, and to implement open, innovative and collaborative ecosystems for mission-critical applications.
Alberto P. Martí has developed most of his career in Spain and in the UK, both in the IT sector and in Academia. As VP of Open Source Innovation at OpenNebula Systems, he deals with strategic collaborations with public cloud/edge providers, open source initiatives, and development teams from other tech vendors. Alberto coordinates the SovereignEdge.EU initiative and is involved in both the IPCEI-CIS and the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud, where he supports the role of OpenNebula Systems as chairing company of the Cloud/Edge Working Group while co-leading one of its Task Forces. Alberto is particularly interested in the conjunction between open source, ethical innovation, and digital sovereignty.
