 So hello, well good afternoon now. I guess no still good morning It's an honor and a pleasure to be here and to present or Just facilitate this conversation and be part of this panel to talk about large open source projects and An interesting part I think is the types of project you're gonna be talking about My name is Gabriel Ango. I'm the CEO and founder of rocket chat Communication platform and I think we have here Large-scale projects that revolve about communication. I think nothing can get larger than a project that tries to get People to communicate across different governments different departments So first I think I would like each one of us to of you to introduce yourself tell a little bit What are you working on? Why it's important and why it's such a large-scale project for us to have the context Okay, let's see as I'm Daniel Mellin I work as a strategist for the Swedish tax agency and the part where where this comes in is that which we will delve into a little bit is the project that's going on in the Swedish public sector where we try to Move away in the collaborations pay. We try to move away from Locked-in solutions that is not customer-friendly from a real customer perspective and not really legal for us to use and they don't Supply sovereignty for for Sweden as a nation. So we try to move to solutions that Sort of is is workable for us in in all of these contexts All right, I just continue. Hi great to be here. My name is Miriam Seifert I'm head of political communications at the open source business alliance that is a German business association We have a little more than 200 members and we work to spread awareness for about the advantages of open source We have a main focus on public sector projects and public procurement But it's not the only thing we do but it's one of our main focuses Hi, good morning everyone are great to have still a few people here in the room The others hopefully taking a bite over there. I'm Frank Plachetta I'm the chief strategy officer of data port one of the largest government owned public IT providers in Germany another part of Germany and The two topics that I would like to draw attention upon is of course what we do with Phoenix and open source web-based collaboration suite where you put together some existing Standardized highly used open source components put them together and the other topic is of course what Daniel already touched up on to really Look up to how can we digitize government in a sovereign way in a way where we really can Determine by ourselves how to act in the digital space Yeah, so one thing I think is as we mentioned when you had this our conversation to talk about first You touched on the drivers for those projects war digital sovereignty The impact of the digital markets act or making some of those things legal or illegal What would you explore on this topic? Like what are the drivers and when the project they were currently working on started and why it got the Scale and became a large project It It really started the so in this which case is really started in a in a quite Easy way and and like two years ago where we looked into Again tools for for digital collaboration and the digital works workplace for all our users and and also in some sense There's a connection of of citizens that needs to interact with the government And then we started to look instead of we had some solutions and we need to some of them are were dying We can see a movement that some of the larger software providers are going to the cloud and they are Discouraging or dropping their on-premise solutions. So we are more and more forced to Evaluate and see where we sort of have where we're going and we looked into these solutions. We found that most of the major solutions were We're not usable for us as I said initially for legal reasons and for suitable reasons and again for for sovereignty reasons So and and when we sort of open that can we realize this is much much more and it's much larger things at play and With the war in Ukraine coming It fully exploded in sort of within the government to look into so but hey Where are we going who owns our data? Where is our data? It's in the cloud, but that's not an answer So we have to rethink Where our data is who has control of the data could someone shut off our data could someone with sort of we had a Thing in 2019 where Donald Trump's is shut off Venezuela first for multiple server for multiple American companies and Maybe that is not the case for for European countries But who knows sort of that that idea took also a firm place in our thinking that We must be in control of the data if your private company It's another thing, but if you're the government you have to be able to say to the citizens that We protect our your data. We protect you as a citizen. We protect the country and and That that must always be an overbearing thing to think about sort of where all the registers And things that the government holds that the private sector never does and how does that come into play and and going coming from sort of should we have this video conferencing solution or another one and Ending up in this place two years later is a fascinating journey, but that's where that's what we did and that's where we're going I Would agree. I think that the situation in Germany is quite similar I think that the push for more open source in the public sector goes way back in Germany like the first larger scale project in Munich That was 20 years ago but something that we find nowadays is that the concept of digital sovereignty actually helps us to to Open more hearts and minds and to to gain more alliances With people and because open source for some people is a very abstract concept and it's hard to understand why it's important We keep explaining it every day But for some reason digital sovereignty as a as a buzzword kind of works even better And I think it has a lot to do with the war in Ukraine Because in my everyday work when I talk to politicians, I find that I encounter a much deeper understanding About the need for digital sovereignty and digital independence and also for open source Then we did before the war in Ukraine So in front of that backdrop, I would say the opportunities Especially for large-scale public sector projects have never been better. The situation was never better But I also always say that the glass is only half full So the glass has never been fuller than today. It's the best we ever had, but it's still only half full So a lot of work remains to be done and in Germany We actually started a bunch of really interesting projects last year and the Phoenix project that Frederick is going to be Deeper into later is only one of them Another big project is the the German government Ospo We call it the Center for Digital Sovereignty and you can guess why So we just started that there's a lot of work to be done We also started our own government open source code repository and also the Sovereign Tech Fund Only took up the work last year and we're going to hear more about the Sovereign Tech Fund later on another panel So there are a lot of really interesting projects in the vicinity of digital sovereignty Open source and public government that only started now So we are on our way opportunities have never been better, but a lot of challenges ahead Yeah, I mean I would Underline all of what have been said Someone on the panel before and said verbally nodding But I would like to to add to the notion of the political shortcoming that we are looking at here We are looking at a situation where we are only reacting It is only reaction. There is no action. There is no Putting that together into one piece into one vision into one strategy from my point of view And I think this is a misery. We have to talk about this, you know We are looking at a situation where the three of us and many in this room are working upon singular Activities to push something forward to push some pieces into a direction But we are not Connecting that with the whole of government digitization, for example So this is just singular activities. We are doing this is not the whole picture And I think this is really something we have to talk about in the in the upcoming situations And also that's why I welcome so much to talk about large-scale projects of open source in the public sector because I think All the initiatives that have been done so far were great and we have to continue that to take this as a Complementary, but this is not enough It's not enough what is happening at the moment in the political scenery It is not on top of the agendas It is still a lot of grassroots. We are talking about a lot of bottom-up thing And it's not like on top of the political agenda at the moment and this is something we really have to change because sovereignty digital sovereignty Comprises of free areas if you look on it like a diagram it comprises of yes data sovereignty But that's something the sovereign cloud offerings sovereign cloud offerings will also offer to us Don't worry about that. That will be somehow established Yeah, also operational sovereignty if you pay the price for it will be established The real trouble which we are getting into is technological sovereignty I mean we see a big tech war going on out there between the US region and the Chinese region and We as Europeans are totally left behind at this moment We cannot be happy only to have hyperscaders engineering centers in the south of Germany or anywhere else With thousands of people working there and be happy about that by itself We have to have our own competencies our own Crepabilities and for that we really need to take action now if I may just add to that for a second for sure You're absolutely right There are a lot of people in German government who understand why it's important But there are also a lot of people who have not yet understand or are pushing against it And even last night when we had a little event a lot of people that came up to me from other European countries and said Oh, what you're doing in Germany. That is so great That's the perfect blueprint and I always want to say yeah, it is and it's a great blueprint But it's not that everything is perfect in Germany as I said as I mentioned we still have a lot of hearts and minds to win to win over and every year we have to fight for the funding for the aforementioned projects and They're a huge large-scale public sector projects coming up like the the government cloud that you also mentioned German government promised that when they are going to procure a large government cloud solutions that there will also be a Main focus on an open-source cloud But this has not yet come to pass and we have to push really hard to demand and to to remind them of the oath to actually Yeah, make it come to pass. So yeah, it's still a struggle. The struggle is real. It's just one comment. I love it I think nobody is against the way. It's just comfortable It's just comfortable to take the Microsoft sovereign cloud or whichever solution comes to your mind because it it it really nurtures the situation of capabilities and maturity of public sector IT because they cannot really cope with having the right competencies to Sometimes select establish deploy those kind of systems that we are talking about so this is I think it's never against it's rather a comfy thing and Sometimes also a distrust in your own organizations, which is also something that I think is a miss of political leadership I cannot add to that. I can see a lot of this sort of European way of thinking that we are behind and since we are behind We think then we must be behind and then sort of it even goes further into so we must buy foreign stuff Because we are so behind it's a self-fulfilling process. Yeah. Yeah, and it gets worse. So as Again as I see so the the war in Ukraine is a real it's a game changer in so many ways and here We are looking at a tiny tiny piece of the picture But anyway, it does change in the way that oh sort of it's a bit of a wake-up call I would say to sort of but hey, where are we going? Who are we trusting with technology things and and what a lot of the open source people has been telling for 20 plus years is suddenly sort of So that's what you've been talking about all the time. Yeah, and so that's that's where things are going and and it is We sort of but we've said this for a long time that this is a solution This is a way of going forward and it's not protection is more some kind of European Insular way of thinking because that would be bad, but it's that if the open source is global So why not tap into something that is global and build upon that? I mean every new technology bill is upon open source anyway, so why not be there? We don't have to do some things European in any sense. I don't see that But we shouldn't be fully reliant on on American or Chinese both hardware and software We need to rethink the whole stack the whole supply chain and the whole way of how The European Union is sovereign or not because everything is data in the end Everything is IT. We don't get tap. We don't get tap water. We don't get food. We don't get transportation We don't get anything in in a modern European country without working IT and Since working IT today is equal a lot of open source It has to be there and we have to be there and we have to just see that that is the case and rethink and maybe sort of Stand up a bit sort of straight straight in your back That's a very good point And I think that you're right that it is in a way a self-fulfilling prophecy and as Frederick said there's a lot of people who are just too comfortable and we often in the administration we encounter this notion of Oh, we just need something that works quickly on a large scale And that's why we buy what is already there a proprietary solution And a lot of trust is needed to actually make that jump and to trust that an open source solution Maybe not from such a large company, but maybe a joint venture a conglomeration of different open source Small and medium enterprises could work just as well and even better But we have to straighten our backs and to infuse some trust Into the administration to actually make that jump and I think that's that's hard They're the interesting point. I think it's a nice segue for what I wanted to talk about because we're talking here. It's the requirements for data sovereignty for They are not exactly They're very tied to open source But sometimes when we were talking before you say open source is a way to deliver on those qualities on those requirements But might not be the only way or doing how do we make? or inform people on Why open source might be the best way to deliver on those requirements and are we talking? Beyond data sovereignty open standards open APIs open protocols There's a lot of things that goes even far beyond just a code base If you want to have something to a large scale or widely used that is not just the open search What what what is beyond open search that we should be talking about for for this to happen become a reality? I? Go first. I don't see That the government really has a role to push open source and and be some kind of open source champion in society Again open source is just there open source It's it combines a lot of good benefits But it's the benefits that we are interested in not open source in itself or open standards in itself It's sort of what it gives us that is interesting for us as governments at least for me So when we want things we should be on a functional level say these are the requirements that we have To be able to serve our citizens We need software that does this and this or we need a cloud service that does this and this Whatever, but to be able to do that the suppliers should realize over at least over time that hey if we're gonna Meet the government as a customer base We need to move and the way to move is to more open because the requirements are heading in that direction and I think that's Sort of it's a bit of a roundabout way But I think sort of what we've had done in past this has been that the government should say open source is great And then you get some commissions and you get all kinds of groups of people who say nice things But it really doesn't change much in reality by saying nice things So I think the the way to go is that the government is firm in its Requirements and doesn't sort of back down just because someone says oh, but this solution is much cheaper Or there's a bunch of consultants who knows this solution. You want to say well doesn't matter We need a solution that works this way that is Create and sovereignty for our nation or it creates openness in society or an open government or whatever it is that we want And that's sort of the the goal really I think I slightly disagree on one level and Because I do think that the government should be an open source champion And I think if I understood you correctly you said that it's the suppliers who have to move But I think it's a two-way street. Of course the suppliers have to move But I think the government has to at the same time also move into the direction of the suppliers Because the government is one of the biggest buyers on the market And if they say we have these requirements for a digital sovereignty And we have to make sure that the data of our citizens is protected and that we are Independent in the solutions that we use in the administration that we are not in a vendor lock-in If they say these are the goals that we want to achieve I think it's only logical and actually imperative that they invest into the open source Industry ecosystem in Germany or Europe as a whole and that is already there because only if they invest into the ecosystem And say like okay, we want to mainly Precure open source solutions. We make it a priority actually because this is a priority for us in our policies Then they will also strengthen the ecosystem and then the suppliers also feel a push to move into the direction of the government and their requirements So I think it's a it's a two-way street And I think that our approach in Germany is to actually have a little more push from the government side in order to enable the Ecosystem and the suppliers the suppliers are there But they also need to have the opportunity to actually sell their great open-source solutions So we have to yeah to have the the conditions the prerequisites for that So so for the mere joy of crowd And having the excitement up I would like to take some Objections or some other standpoints at some some ways and we all know each other here very well So everyone will be okay with that I Think that open free permissionless software is a golden standard for digital sovereignty and There there is no way in my opinion for various reasons To to not be the champion for open source and to be the front runner because if we look Not only at the lock-in part, but I would like to add some argument Also at the business model and investment part and how you develop those softwares This is the exact Example and and really a showcase how all regions of this world could work together In various ways in on various artifacts to build the right software that is needed in the very end so exactly what you said and I really think I mean we we had lock 4j and others we will talk around that also later on on the artifacts and how it's used But I really think that open core products Being sold are are a huge problem that we have to talk around also maybe later on in another panel because Just using the artifacts and the communities Who are pushing with so much effort into those things and there's no proprietary software out there that has no open artifacts? Let's face that. Yeah, that's a that's a total truth. I guess Means in the very end we have to make this a huge effort of Societies politics and the industry together to really make this a change and to really Make also something possible which we cause have ready for each of the region and for each of the citizens from my point of view Just add one more thing. Sorry No, yeah Yeah, yeah, no, you're absolutely right I think in the end it all comes down to open standards and open protocols as you mentioned before Gabriel Because I would always argue that open source is the better solution But if we if we are honest with ourselves, there will not be a point probably where the government is only using 100% open source solutions So the the important part is that the government is able to combine different solutions so that interoperability Come on say it with me Interoperability is actually given So that we can actually combine the different solutions and I think this is something that we also have to push very hard So I think if I can summarize All the points we find very interesting and and obviously something close to heart for me The government has the main role that we can all agree It's actually pushing on those requirements on what it needs to protect of your citizens data to protect It's a continuity and operation And and you can may start with the open standards interoperability, but if you go down and and and maybe you said you stop Stop a step forward and say oh needs to be open source But I guess if you boil down all the requirements Open source ends up being the solution or the answer You just you don't want to say it and maybe want them to to find out Or you think you might be able to actually just say like we want something that is open so you can collaborate and see And participate and innovate together So that's actually this slightly Difference from what you guys described What brings me to to ask you to tell a little bit more about the specifics of the projects that you are involved getting into really the details because Germany and Sweden have a Might be getting to a similar answer to the communication Projects that you are involved, but have a very different strategy on how you've you've you've you've reached that that I love you to describe and and I I I participated in on a meeting that the meeting that you that you started And I just gonna tell this part of the story because I think was very very interesting that he Swedish government invited Competitors from the open source market to be on the very same meeting all together and some of them are here like Frank and Matt and I'm a dean and Was we're all in the same meeting and they were like what what are we doing? Some way was was a strange from a vendor being asking us all to be on the same meeting and pretty much What are you the government was saying is look? We want this to exist. We want to have choice. You want those projects To collaborate and make it happen that they can have a higher degree of stability Can you make it happen? And then it was like an interesting role Which I think is different from what the German government end up doing but I would love to understand from your perspective why you decided a route. What are the benefits the risks and Compare compare notes on the two different approach and the results And remember also saying that we want you all to be winners and and I've never seen so many puzzled faces in a digital meeting before Because and someone you said said so you're not pitting us against you No, no, no the opposite. We want you all to be winners and that yes, it was interesting It was almost an open source thing. Yeah, yeah but but but the the thinking behind it is that if Since we've realized that the absolute dominant market players were off of the off the chart for us to buy We couldn't buy Google or we couldn't buy Microsoft or zoom or Salesforce or any solution hosted by Yes, they were they were off because they still are for multiple reasons still they're still not legal for us too So so all of that and that takes away a huge chunk of the market and then we realized but it's who's left And there was a bunch of companies of course and companies or open source projects There's a sort of different different versions of it and we realized that so if we are gonna get the solutions We need we need everyone who is sort of thinking like us or could help us or could provide technology to us We need all of them to succeed and we need to make them make sure that they don't compete on Unnecessary things again open source is a good thing, but also open standards. So that's also why we push to say There's multiple solutions of doing of doing chat The chat is a very simple thing But have you tried sort of if your organization has one chat solution and another organization has another to the chat solution Do they work well together? No, that is not the case. So slack has one thing teams is another soon Does it another way rocket chat does it another way and that was the market then we said this is stupid I don't know what email solution you have but we can email I don't know what phone you have or what phone company you have but we can talk But that was not the case with chat. So that was a sort of the main goal really for that meeting will say Start working together and start being interoperable. So different parts of the government can have different technology solutions But they can still work to work together in in a good way with sort of Full of federation so I can see the status that you're not at work this day or I can just ping you I could just start an ad hoc chat with you or so far And and and we got also the questions are you know, well, how is that supposed to be done? And going back to our way of thinking is that we have no idea. We are not technology providers We don't develop software. We're customer base and we're the government So do you have a solution and of course the market has those different solutions and I say pick one Pick the one you think has the sort of the best path forward That seems to be easiest to implement for all of you and if you can do that You have a value because then you have the value of open standard built into your solution and The dominant market players, they're not interested in that so they will be left out So then we will have a value proposition for us and to the market and say We will buy these interoperable solutions So if you're selling a non-interoperable solution, you will sort of you will lose in the procurement phase directly on just on that point and That meeting is One year ago a little bit more than one year ago And then it was nothing today all the major chat solutions on the market Have sort of in some sense Gone to the matrix protocol so I Think we had an impact although we're just a few governmental agencies in a small country northern Europe and That is the fun thing and that sort of spurred us to we can do more of this and we can we can still push and The way to do this is to be firm in your requirement specification and say this is what we need Please develop yours your software companies. You can develop things. It's just technology The rest is business decisions that says we don't want to do this or we don't want to do that or we want to go this path It's it's up to each company or each project to do whatever they like But it's hard to develop and hard to sell unless the customer tells you what you want So that's again, that's really what we're just doing So there's nothing you have said that sort of I am against it anyway I all I totally agree with you in everything you said It's again, it's like David put it's just we have sort of two ways of going to the same goal different paths same goal And I think both lead to the same goal. So what you said, I absolutely agree with to it So the way to go so go you I think it could be a good blueprint for other European countries, too And we will look how things go with you to see what we can learn from that So maybe just to add to that another example of where we start. I think in the end we will be Maybe in the same space on the same area. We did a few things differently It started with backing of political leadership We had a decision of the state of Schleswig-Holstein the northern state in Germany to Have an open-source Collaboration suite that was a decision and we as a public IT provider of Schleswig-Holstein and we saw the same problems Which we had to react upon And that's why we started Phoenix in the beginning and we started from the user experience And if I look at a classic public servant who's working He needs that kind of one look and feel in the beginning That's exactly where they are and what we build around that and that's the vision that we are working upon is to have a kind of API around it where you can then exactly like you said interoperable put in and out solutions Maybe in a very vision even just have a portal or something like that where you can just click and and At or just take out some of the modules So that's exactly where we are heading at the moment and with this political leadership It was a lot easier the thing that we are doing differently is We are not saying there's a carrot run We're giving the industry money We're giving the industry money to develop those features that we want and we have Secured in the last years Also a lot of federal government money from the federal budget, which I think is of high importance for this Because this is a moonshot then it makes the only moonshot if you have the right funding the right political backing And when you can really move into that direction with this vision I mean we have seen so many Projects in the digital space from governments which have failed and they failed not Fast like you should fail in digital projects. They faded out It took years to come to understand that there will be no cloud Airbus coming up with Gaia X It took years Now we are there. Yes We have a very great data exchange platform and stuff like that, but coming from what the vision was of Gaia X I think we are not there and we have not delivered on that vision from my point of view And this is a perfect example of what we have to do in political leadership now We have to make a vision we have to bring ministers behind that and we have to follow that vision through and Really try to learn also on that and if we fail we fail fast but what we do by that on the Diagram that I told you about operational data technological sovereignty We save a chance on the technological sovereignty part because we save competencies and capabilities in Europe in the industry And I think this is the most important thing and maybe one last thing and it's not against you Gary I know you work differently. I mean I was working for many years as a consultant and Design go-to-market strategies for tech companies in various setups And I really have to admit That the open-source industry is is Failing on many parts of how to tackle the public sector from my point of view It is highly fragmented it is Sometimes not complementary, but rather cannibalizing Each and everyone tries to add another feature in the value chain in there in there in their thing instead of focusing and Really going into the vertical of one or two domains for yourself and then work together You know something the public sector market is so huge You can all smile. It's exactly like Daniel said, but you have to work together You are missing one of the biggest opportunities You all combined cannot take over what the market leaders are doing in the proprietary sector at the moment That's why you have to collaborate on this. This is my speech that I'm giving to every open source tech guy and and girl and Love to to say that also out loud here and I think it's very important that this measure sits Very true in addition to that you also mentioned this concept of the moonshot and I mentioned earlier that I think that the opportunities have never been better, but I also feel that with great opportunity comes great responsibility and I think that the pressure especially for these large-scale public sector projects in Germany The pressure is really high it sometimes feels like we're in a football game And we're standing in front of the goal post and now we have to score and the pressure time the pressure is going up and I feel that we really have to deliver with this project because I fear that if they fail if these moonshots fail And we don't come together and the fragmented market does not push together to towards the same common goal And people will not say oh, it's just another failed government project whatever Honestly, I really fear that people will say oh it failed because it's open source It was never going to work and this is why I feel that the the responsibility is really great And the different companies and industry sectors really have to come together to make it work to make it a success story So that we can push even further and so that next year We can talk with each other about the new project that we started because the old ones are still going strong And are still very successful. So success really is imperative. I feel and on that topic Because we talked about yeah, how important the success of those large projects it is for the Concept of open service at large scale project itself What do you think are the main risks and what? We need to do or what the audience here needs to do for us to make sure that those projects are successful I think you touched on the very first topic. It's more collaboration rather than competition That's for me. It's it's a very very important important point I like to think that as a rocket chat Trying to do ourselves in not reinventing the wheel and trying to collaborate with other open source project adopting the matrix protocol Working with any other project on what it can't to not just compete but try to to to complete each other but What else I guess on the government side from funding or setting an example or or maybe getting other Countries from the EU to start similar projects. So becomes even more of a critical mass of pushing this kind of innovation What are the risks and what should we be doing to mitigate us and The audience I think one more point that we have not yet touched on is the the danger of open washing I call it Because we have to be really concise about what digital sovereignty really is and what we understand What we think it is Because it's a concept that is very on vogue It's very in the time But people really use it the way they want to use it the way it fits their concepts and their interests And I fear that especially big companies like Google or Microsoft Will just adapt their marketing strategies and say oh all of our products are digital sovereign and it's all great And it's very much securing your digital independence And this is why it's very important to have a shared understanding of what actually really constitutes Open source and what is really digital sovereign and to be yet to straighten our backs and Yeah, and to not let them slip through with their claims of being digital sovereign when they're actually not So I think this is something where we have to be very aware And I mean those companies that you're talking about I mean we just had and I won't disclose the name. We just had a company US company Who was doing an outlook? Email to we have 4,200 people at data port we identified around about 500 people that this email has been sent to With a straight offering of an appointment to have together with them and to explain how sovereign their solution is and stuff like that I mean we shouldn't forget That's also playing to the let's play together and collaborate You know because our efforts or the efforts in this room are Limited the resources are limited if everyone is running to everyone You will fail because they the the armadas that are over there are so huge And they are so well in argumenting exactly like you mentioned We have to take a really high awareness of that from my point of view No much to add to that but but I think yeah, but I think you already said No, but the the to realize that each open source project or each open source company Has I think that you will have to you have to be a part of an ecosystem and you have to realize it is an ecosystem And you have to figure out where in the ecosystem Do you want to be and then you can be like the data ports way of doing sort of we have API's or we have Boundaries between software packages that is defined so we can remove something and add something else that's really good idea because that builds upon an ecosystem and and We have seen that over time sort of where where projects grow when they're successful And they become more and more of all things to all people and Probably won't succeed because they're seldom the funds to be all things to all people So that was I think we all agree on that one easily that that looking looked deep into sir Your your strategy on where do you want to be and where do you want to compete or where does yours open source project fit in And how do you and build alliances with as many as possible? So no one else gets the idea to develop things that is already there But just didn't know about it or they thought that we can do this even better and Yeah, it may be so but is it really necessary should you really focusing the development resources on Rebuilding something that is already there and good enough if it's of course if it's not working or bad By all means but usually that's not the case if it's a project project or Something that is around and has a lot of users is usually good enough at least on what is sort of what's supposed to be doing I Think we have about five minutes for some some some closing notes and And calls to action right because we already said collaborate collaborates More interoperability find your place on the ecosystem not reinvent the wheel. I think this is It's a lot for the makers here But what it would be the call to actions or things that you would recommend for the other countries in opinion What is from the government side? What what can we should be asking them to do to make sure that those projects are successful and then you can use them as Blueprint for other successful large-scale projects not just on communication in other you nations or maybe I'm from Brazil in South America like or or or US or anywhere else I think that the the concept of blueprints is actually important So that if one European company tries one European country tries something out that looks Somewhat successful That I think there's a lot of value for other European countries to just copy that concept and see how they can adapt it to their Circumstances so we see a lot of government auspose popping up right now Which is a great thing and as I mentioned before we started this So the sovereign tech fund last year in Germany and I think just this week the open technology Open technology fund announced that they are starting a very similar project And I think it makes a lot of sense because the sovereign tech fund is funding Basic critical open-source infrastructure with German government money, which is a great thing But a lot of countries companies around the world are profiting off of that And I think it has to be a joint effort And another thing is that for a lot of things that we have still on our agenda project that we would like to see To come to pass in Germany. We also look around what is going on in the other European countries Is there a role model in Spain or in the Czech Republic or in Italy? And then it helps us actually in our argumentation when we talk to government officials and politicians that we can say Oh, look over there. They did a similar thing in Italy and it seems to work So we should try that out, too So it's always nice to not be the first one to break the mold But to take a blueprint and adapt it to your own circumstances So I think we should all look even more around to our neighbors and get inspired by them And also further the exchange just like we're doing it right now today here And to take impulses and ideas and take them home and then adapt them And to just add to that sort of if you're from from different countries or within governments publish things Openly We see says we've had this as you say we have these discussions, but someone else must have done this There must be a study on this or report on this or development on this or a requirement specification of that But where are they and how do you find them and too many governments are too reluctant to just share these Simple things so please do and when you do Translate it into English. Yes. Yes, otherwise it will get nowhere So the as I said again, we did sort of the Some research in the beginning of sort of where where we're going It was just in Swedish that we talked to some and he said you need to translate it So we translated into English and then it blew up because then everyone around the world understood what we're saying and issues and Gabriel could read it or Frederick could read it and a lot of people and we can also see the impact in the United States and sort of here So there's Swedish governmental report, which is sort of which just says things but it's set the wheels in motion So it does work and sort of just blast it out put it on your website or LinkedIn Twitter Whatever sort of out with it and don't and and to add to this don't be afraid that it isn't perfect Nothing is perfect all software contains bugs all governmental reports or pre-studies or whatever Also contains bugs that is fine But you have but out with it So others can read and build upon it to say hey in Spain they're doing this or in Sweden They're doing this or in Germany they're doing this and we can build upon that and we can sort of point to that sort of here Some other study or research or whatever and and doing the open source way But not software It's so easy costs nothing Yes, so we have to put Air under each other wings. I think this is how I would summarize that this is very important We are all allies in this so we have to push each other forward, you know the reaction should not be Oh someone else is doing an open source collaboration suite. Oh, that's not not a good thing I can do it better the reaction should be wow. Let's call them. Let's speak together Exactly what what we are doing, you know when I was in Stockholm I was at a conference where the whole day you all Spoke in Swedish. There was not a there was not a missing. I learned a lot But we had that exchange and this is important We have to do that we have to put that together and the glass is always half full I have to say that as a Rheinländer The glass is always half full, you know all of those initiatives bring us forward in those cases and Maybe I think all of on this panel has a sensitivity, but I think it's very important We are nearing the the first year of a war going on in in Europe in the very near of us So the last thing that I would just like to explicit because we put that as a reasoning all of us on this is We stand with Ukraine. Thank you so much