 Open Source Policy Summit 2024. It is my great pleasure to see all of you here. Now it is the third time that I host this event and I have to say it is getting better and better every year. The team at OFE is doing a great job. My name is Paula Grzegorzewska. Thank you. My name is Paula Grzegorzewska and I am the Strategic Partnerships Director at OFE. And today I will of course introduce all of the speakers and just make sure that everything runs smoothly. But most of all I will be a strict time enforcer after a bit of a late start. So I think we will need a larger venue next year. This is something that I say every year and this is quite a tradition at this point. So we will try to get a larger venue however I do like this one. But I am super happy to see you here. Especially that it is a special edition of our summit. It is the 10th time that we see each other here in Brussels. And I was wondering because we started with a meeting of like 10 people in a room in Brussels. Do we have any of these people who are here at the pre-falsed them 10 years ago? Okay. I see some hands. I'm so happy to see you here. Because we've started with yeah 10 people also when I joined OFE some years ago. It was quite a small meeting in a sense. And now it has grown so much just like the organization itself. So I'm very happy about that. But it is also a special year because it was quite a special year for open source and policy. So the topic of why we are all meeting here. We had quite some let's say things on cybersecurity. We had quite some concerns and opportunities related to AI. And many other topics that our panelists will discuss today. So I will not go into that. Before we start, I would like to say great, great thank you to our sponsors starting with our gold sponsors, the Linux Foundation, Red Hat and the Eclipse Foundation, who is also the production partner this year. Then to our silver sponsors, IBM and Open Exchange. And our brown sponsors, Appel, OIN, Ospel++, Type 03 and Xroad. Thank you. And last but not least, I would like to thank all of the participants on site. And I invite you to join the cocktails that will be sponsored by GitHub at the very end of it. And I also thank everyone joining us online. I hope that you will enjoy that because we really put a lot of effort into making sure that the experience online is as fun as it is on site. Please do share your thoughts and your ideas and whatever else you would like to online on social media and in the chat. Our team is in there, so they are happy to answer your questions. And if you share, please use the hashtag EU open source. This is a hashtag that we usually use and of course, Tag us. And now I'm not going to go for any longer. I invite on stage OFE's executive director, Astroneumelin Karberg. Well, good morning, everyone. And good morning to everyone online. And good day, maybe, or good evening, depending on where you're joining us in the world. It's really hardening to see such an overwhelming interest in this year's summit. And just like Paula said, we've really expanded our capacity, trying to keep up with requests for in-person tickets. It's clear that the demand for exceeds the seats that we have to offer. Now, this enthusiasm is very much a testament to the impact and importance of open source in our world today. And as we mark our 10-year anniversary, well, we take the cue, we take the sign that will make the next year's summit bigger, more inclusive, and we'll get more seats. And Paula thanked all the sponsors, but I wanted to expand on that gratitude a little bit and thank all the partners and supporters that have worked with the OFE over the years. So while our policy event before FOSTEM turns 10, OFE is more than 20 years old. And the number of organizations and people that have worked with us and helped us in our mission is really staggering. But community is part of our mission and there is no other way for us to do this work. And there's no other way we would like to do this work. And talking about community, I have some great news. It's not just growing, it's shining a little bit brighter. Today, I have the privilege of announcing the two luminaries in our ecosystem. Mozilla and the Matrix.org Foundations have formally joined forces with OFE as supporters. So very, very grateful and excited. To start off this year's event, I would like to contextualize this within the broader political landscape. We are a policy think tank after all. The past year's relentless policy work done by a myriad of open source organizations across Europe and the world. For many of which they've been working with governments and legislation for the first time. The strategic value and importance of open source is increasingly recognized by governments. And I think many of you here today might have noticed this in your day-to-day work. And I'm both proud and impressed by the level of collaboration and ours invested by the policy wonks of open source over the years. And especially the last two years. But also the time spent by policymakers to wrap their heads around the intricacies of the open source model. I think many of you know that it's not always the most intuitive one. So in a way with so many new people and organizations joining the conversations here in Brussels, but in capitals across the world. I feel like this summit is not an anniversary party celebrating the past. But it feels a little bit like a coming of age party. It is a starting point for us together to having the really, really big conversations. Maybe I could even say the adult conversations about the role of open source and collaborative innovation for the future of Europe. But here I think I should stop myself a little bit. Because it's not only about Europe, is it? Our theme this year is Europe in the world of open source. An inherent open source is that it is global without borders. And this is where our conversation gets truly fascinating. Open source is more than a technical framework. It's a paradigm of international cooperation. It's diplomacy for engineers, community and project managers and developers, transcended geographical and political borders. But what are the examples of these big conversations that I think we should have? Well, you're here today and I hope that we've managed to bring the right people together here today to discuss at least some of those important topics. We will delve into how open source is shaping global standards in technology, influencing policy and how policy is influencing open source and how this happens at an international scale. We're going to discuss how open source is used and can further be used to bridge gaps between diverse cultures and organizations through and across the digital landscape. And yes, I think everybody here knows that open source is the bedrock of our digital infrastructure. It's a foundation that underpins the very essence of the digital world. And importantly, open source is significantly beneficial for the challengers in the world. And that absolutely includes emerging economies. It creates equal opportunities and offer access to advanced technology in resource limited environments and challengers across the board. It can serve as a practical tool for technological progress, economic development, and increased competitiveness. So whether you're a government representative or representing a newly christened open source steward, a burgeoning startup, a large technology company, software SME standards organization, or if you're an individual developer that's worked with us for many years, this summit is meant to be our way, OFE's way, of giving you a platform for initiating collaboration to solve our biggest societal challenges. For those of you new to this part of the digital world, I would like to tell you that in open source collaboration is not just a buzzword. What engineers and open source professionals of different specialties have built collaboratively is arguably the most important and complex system of infrastructure and applications in the history of the world. The staggering value of open source and what it brings to the world, recently quantified to more than 8 trillion euros, mirrors the collective intellect, the shared commitment, and the boundless potential that open source encapsulates. It's about harnessing the core DNA of open source, fostering collaboration among diverse communities and stakeholders. Now OFE is a think tank advocating for open technologies, but especially because of that it is imperative to confront the challenges within open source. It is one of the most valuable commons in the world, but this digital environment or commons isn't without its sustainability challenges. Open source risks being a victim of its own success if it's start of necessary support and investments. If we fail to adequately nurture and sustain these shared resources, there's a real risk that they might appreciate. This is in and of itself a global challenge. This should not be politicized, I think it should be treated like our new International Space Station. Open Forum Europe does not attempt to stand at the forefront of this movement. We try to avoid being a spokesperson for it if we can, but we try to play the role of convener and coordinator where we think it might be necessary. While we have grown a lot in the last year and last years, we remain small and to some extent by choice. At the end of the day, it's only together with you here that we can take the further steps of creating the digital future that fully realizes value from open technologies and collaborative innovation. So in the coming year, we invite you all very much because we needed to engage with us. Starting in three weeks, for example, we're organizing a webinar series, the OFE Lounge, for standards and open source professionals to get to know each other and collaborate on the implementation of new software regulation. In April, we're organizing an event here in Brussels, an open source under the auspices of the Belgian presidency of the EU. And in the fall, we will again organize the very popular Open Forum Academy symposium. We're trying to bring a global community of academics together to discuss the social, political and economic impact of open source, an area that is still surprisingly under-researched. If you want to join us, talk to us here today, send us an email, but really engage. So let me end by extending my deepest gratitude to everyone in the OFE team who have not just made today possible, but have worked tirelessly during the intense final years of this European parliament mandate. And for the next 10 years, OFE and its staff will still be here. And we'll navigate ourselves and hopefully our partners and supporters through complex regulation, advocating for open technologies and emphasizing the critical role of open source in shaping a resilient, competitive and equitable digital Europe. Thank you very much and have a really good day today.