Fellow Spotlights, GFortran Investment, Job Opening & Upcoming Events

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This month, we’re sharing updates and details on new investments, interviews with Sovereign Tech Fellows Sarah Hoffmann and Stefan Eissing, and a reminder for a working student job opening (deadline 15 May 2025). Plus, we have several event announcements for the weeks ahead, where you’ll have the chance to meet our team members, attend our talks, and engage with us 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.

We invest globally in the open software components that underpin Germany's and Europe's competitiveness and ability to innovate. Improving the security, stability, and reusability of open software components directly enhances the productivity, competitive edge, and capacity for innovation of startups and small and medium-sized businesses. We’re excited to be working with these maintainers and FOSS communities, and to support the software that forms the foundation of the infrastructure of the 21st century.

GFortran

• Advancing an open source Fortran compiler, to enable modern, efficient capabilities for high-performance computing and scientific research

Sarah Hoffmann

Sarah loves to discover beautiful places in real life – and in code. Learn more about Sarah's journey in open source in this in-depth interview, from the technologies she works on, and the challenges she faces to her experiences working with an international volunteer community.

Read Sarah's Interview

Stefan Eissing

Stefan has been building connections since the days of dial-up modems. In this interview, he shares how early grassroots tech shaped his philosophy, what led him to leave commercial development for full-time open source, and what it means to contribute to projects like curl today.

Read Stefan's Interview

If you haven’t done so yet, please send your application to jobs@sovereign.tech, as we close this position on Thursday, 15 May 2025. We are looking for a motivated and detail-oriented working student to support our impact evaluation efforts through data collection, analysis, and visualization. As part of our Research and Policy team, you will play a key role in helping us measure and communicate the outcomes of our work.

Job Description

• On 15 May 2025, we’re co-hosting a meeting with Tweede Golf and RustNL in Utrecht, Netherlands, during Rust Week focused on memory safety in Europe:
• On 23 May 2025, Adriana Groh will be speaking at a symposium on cybersecurity, resilience, and sovereignty hosted at Akademie für Politische Bildung in Tutzing, Germany
• From 26 -28 May 2025, you’ll have the chance to meet some of our team at re:publica 25 in Berlin, Germany
• From 16–20 June 2025, we’ll be at UN Open Source Week 2025, in New York, USA:
  • We’ll take part in Digital Public Infrastructure Day and OSPOs for Good, where Adriana Groh will be speaking.
  • Together with Alpha-Omega, we’re also hosting a maintain-a-thon focused on sustaining critical open source infrastructure.
  • Additional side events will explore the broader challenges of long-term maintenance and support for essential code
• On June 19 2025, Tara Tarakiyee will participate in a panel discussion at Waterkant Festivalin Kiel, Germany, together with Dirk Schrödter, Cathleen Berger, Frank Karltischek, and Matti Nannt