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   Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:51 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

   • Franziska Brantner

   The Sovereign Tech Fund turns one year old today! On 18 Oct 2022, @franziskabrantner invited us to German parliament to present the technologies and projects in our pilot investment round. Let's take a look back at the first 12 months and see how far we've come. 1/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:44 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     The Sovereign Tech Fund started a year ago as a unique and tailor-made tool for strengthening the open source ecosystem. This marked the launch of an important new endeavor: digital services in the public interest.

     These strengthen digital sovereignty, innovation, and competitiveness through investment in foundational, critical software. The approach initially outlined in the STF feasibility study is working and will continue to be scaled up. https://sovereigntechfund.de/files/SovereignTechFund_Machbarkeitsstudie_de.pdf 12/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:44 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     The STF is already seen as a model for similar ventures, and we want to continue to serve as a blueprint for others active in this area. There is a huge need, which has only become clearer with our experiences during our first year.

     In our second year, we’ll continue working on building up STF as an effective and impactful institution, supporting the much-needed work on critical open source software. We’re drawing up other exciting plans and ideas, stay tuned! 13/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:46 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     The STF team is also growing: there are 10 of us now with very diverse (work) experiences. We are united by the goal of promoting security, innovation, and competitiveness and creating a stable digital foundation for participation and democracy. 10/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:46 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     • The Linux Foundation
     • PublicSpaces

     Because our team has grown, we've been able to talk more about our mission. STF has been on stage at FOSS-Backstage, UN OICT's OPSOs for Good, @publicspaces Conference, Chaos Communication Camp, Bitkom Open Source Forum, @linuxfoundation's Open Source Summit EU, Internet Governance Forum, and other events. 11/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:47 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     In June, the STF launched the #ContributeBackChallenges to test & develop new approaches w/FOSS communities. The “innovation competition” format has streamlined and sped up the whole process, which proved very valuable. We’ll be announcing the selected projects tomorrow! 9/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:48 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     These 40 projects represent a fraction of what our analysis determined to be critical digital infrastructure (open digital base technologies). STF’s team identified 195 technologies as worthy of investment, ∼100 through our own research and 95 through submitted applications. 7/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:48 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     Since launching the STF application platform at the end of March 2023, 142 projects applied for a total €95 million in support. More than one third of applications came from Germany, another third from other EU/EEA countries.

     The volume of submissions in just 6 months demonstrates that our vision and projects resonate with FOSS communities, and that need is substantial. We are already exploring more potential ways to strengthen more aspects of the open source ecosystem. 8/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:49 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     At this same event, we shared our plans for #BugResilienceProject to help FOSS projects reduce the risk that they contain bugs and improve their ability to respond to discovered bugs.

     In the report evaluating the pilot phase, we summarize the insights & learnings from the first 6 months, including interviews with the maintainers. https://sovereigntechfund.de/files/SovereignTechFund_Evaluationsbericht_Pilotphase_en.pdf /5

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:49 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     • Wirtschaft & Klimaschutz

     In these first 12 months, STF invested in 40 technology projects with a total €15.25 million from @BMWK (German Ministry for Economic Affairs & Climate Action). We commissioned a variety of work, from maintenance to security to workflow optimization. 6/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:50 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     • GovTechCampusDE

     On April 20 & 21, 2023, we invited the participants from the pilot round to Berlin for a special meeting. We collected feedback, exchanged experiences and shared about future plans for the STF.

     Afterwards, we hosted an event at @GovTechCampusDE with stakeholders from politics and civil society. This started with input from @fbrantner and then we presented highlights from the pilot phase. 3/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:50 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     • Raphael Robert

     In a panel and Q&A, Niels Raijer (OpenBGPd), @raphaelrobert (OpenMLS) and Daniel Huigens (OpenPGP) shared their experiences from the perspective of the FOSS projects. 4/

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     Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Dec-2023 01:34:51 JST Sovereign Tech Fund

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     STF’s mission is to sustainably strengthen the open source ecosystem. What does that actually mean? The 9 projects of the pilot round show the breadth of digital infrastructure and how crucial these technologies are in different areas of our lives:

     OpenMLS, Curl, OpenBGPd, Bundler/RubyGems, Wireguard, OpenPGP.js/GopenPGP, OpenSSH, Sequoia PGP and Fortran. You can read more about these technologies and others we supported this year here: https://sovereigntechfund.de/en/#projects 2/