Newsletter: Fellow Interviews, EU-STF, OSPOs for Good Panel & Upcoming Events
By Powen Shiah
In Newsletter
Email newsletter on 6 August 2025: We share two new in-depth interviews with Sovereign Tech Fellows Hugo van Kemenade and Matthias Klumpp and express our support for the recently published EU Sovereign Tech Fund feasibility study by OpenForum Europe. We’ve also adapted Adriana Groh’s remarks at UN Open Source Week in June into a more accessible blog post.
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In this newsletter, we share two new in-depth interviews with Sovereign Tech Fellows Hugo van Kemenade and Matthias Klumpp, and express our support for the recently published EU Sovereign Tech Fund feasibility study by OpenForum Europe. We’ve also adapted Adriana Groh’s remarks at UN Open Source Week in June into a more accessible blog post. Plus, don’t miss our upcoming events, these are great opportunities to meet our team and connect in person!
If you’d like to find out about these updates as they happen, you can find the Sovereign Tech Agency on Mastodon, LinkedIn, and Bluesky.
Sovereign Tech Fellowship Interviews
Hugo van Kemenade
Hugo is a leading voice in the Python community. The projects he maintains are downloaded over 280 million times a month, including libraries used in NASA missions. In this interview, Hugo shows how his passion for contributions has developed into future-proofing the entire Python ecosystem.
Matthias Klumpp
Matthias first got curious about Linux as a teenager with a very slow internet connection but big passion for computer systems. That curiosity sparked a journey into open source that continues to this day. Matthias shares how coding for fun evolved into maintaining critical infrastructure for millions of users and why strong maintainership is essential for collaboration in diverse communities.
EU-Sovereign Tech Fund
The new feasibility study on an EU Sovereign Tech Fund, published by OpenForum Europe, makes a strong and timely case for scaled, strategic investment in Europe’s open digital infrastructure: Modern societies, industries, and public institutions rely on open technologies every day, and ensuring their sustainability and security is a public responsibility. Effective European-level coordination must reflect this. It should recognize the nature of open source development and actively reduce, rather than increase, the burden on its maintainers.
The study on an EU-STF underscores what the Sovereign Tech Agency has championed since 2022: that lean, independent, and targeted funding can meaningfully strengthen the open source ecosystem and thereby boost innovation, competition and resilience. With a proven model in place, we’re excited to take this mission forward with partners across the EU.
Innovation and Maintenance Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
At the OSPOs For Good Summit during UN Open Source Week 2025, Adriana Groh spoke on the panel “The Role of Open Source in Digital Public Infrastructure” with Dr. Wolfgang Gehring, Miller Abel, Gabriele Columbro, and Franck Greverie. We've adapted her remarks on digital infrastructure into a blog post for improved readability.
The Trusteeship Council Chamber at UN during the OSPOs for Good panel. Adriana Groh is projected on the overhead screen.
Sovereign Tech Agency out and about
- 16-18 August 2025, meet Mirko Swillus, and some Sovereign Tech Fellows at FrOSCon in Sankt Augustin, Germany
- 25-27 August 2025, several members our team will be attending and speaking at Open Source Summit Europe in Amsterdam
- 6-11 September 2025, Paloma Oliveira will participate in KDE Akademy 2025 in Berlin
- 1-3 October 2025, Jan Kowalleck will participate in the Nordic Software Security Summit in Stockholm
Hiring: Finance and Operations Manager
To support our management team, Sovereign Tech Agency is looking for an experienced person to efficiently set up and implement operational processes. As a key member of our administrative team, you will help shape processes, ensure everything runs smoothly, and support the further expansion of the finance and operational side of our organization.
