Notices by Sovereign Tech Fund (sovtechfund@mastodon.social)

The Sovereign Tech Agency is the new home for the Sovereign Tech Fund, all our programs, and our growing team as well.

We’d like to introduce the people behind the Sovereign Tech Agency 🤗

https://www.sovereign.tech/news/meet-the-sovereign-tech-agency

Hello, World! We’re now the Sovereign Tech Agency 🎉

It’s been two years since the Sovereign Tech Fund began investing in open technologies in the public interest, and our mission has grown to be more than the “fund” in our name. The new Sovereign Tech Agency anchors digital infrastructure on the agenda and is a home for the Sovereign Tech Fund and our other programs that strengthen the open source ecosystem.

Read more: https://www.sovereign.tech/news/stf-part-of-new-sovereign-tech-agency

How effective are bug bounties in securing critical, open source infrastructure? On 30 Sep 2024 in Berlin, following a keynote by Sabine Grützmacher (MdB), Dr. Ryan Ellis will present his research and dive into FOSS, security, and the public interest with an expert panel. Details & agenda for the evening event: https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/programs/bug-resilience/research-event

We’ve set aside 30 spots for interested FOSS community members. Register here: https://events.sovereigntechfund.de/bug-resilience/

We're on our way to Open Source Summit Europe this week! Look for @krakenbuerger, @tarakiyee, Paul Sharratt, @mechko, @kelset, and @polexa in Vienna. Don't miss our talks and sessions:

✴️ Tue. 17 Sep at 11:55am: How Stakeholders Across Government, Enterprise, & Civil Society can Accelerate Open Source for Good! (Fiona) https://sched.co/1izL3

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#OSSEU #OSSEU2024 #OSSummit

On 17 June 2024, you'll be able to apply for new financing from STF. We’re looking forward to proposals from critical and foundational open source technologies, whose work strengthens the #FOSS ecosystem. Thanks to all maintainers and contributors for your #opensource engagement! https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/programs#general-investments

Interested in joining the STF team? The deadline to submit an application for the Bug Resilience Program Manager job opening is Sunday, 14 April 2024. We're looking forward to getting your applications!

https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/jobs/bug-resilience-program-manager #fossjobs #GetFediHired

Reminder: The Sovereign Tech Fund is asking #FOSS maintainers for input as we design the pilot program for a paid fellowship to support critical digital infrastructure. Help us by sharing this with maintainers you know!

The last day to submit a response is Sunday, 7 April 2024.

More: https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/news/foss-maintainer-fellowship-survey

Survey: https://survey.sovereigntechfund.de/968766

We’re seeking input from #FOSS maintainers as we design a fellowship program pilot. We want to test a support mechanism that addresses structural issues in the FOSS ecosystem, and support maintainers who work on open digital infrastructure in the public interest.

If you maintain open source projects, we would be very grateful if you could take ten minutes to respond to the survey:
https://survey.sovereigntechfund.de/968766

Please also repost and share with FOSS maintainers you know. Thanks!

We’re excited to announce that we’re supporting @reproducible_builds and investing in the supply chain integrity in open source software development. This will help make the software ecosystem more secure for developers and users. https://sovereigntechfund.de/tech/reproducible-builds/

Come work for the Sovereign Tech Fund! The STF is expanding and looking for talented individuals to join our mission!

We're hiring:
- Technologist
- Program Manager
- Bug Resilience Program Manager

Interested? We look forward to your application! Please share this opportunity with your network.

Find more information about these positions here:

https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/jobs#open-positions

#Jobs #FOSS #Hiring

We’re excited to announce that we’re supporting #ActivityPub Test Suite and investing in the establishment of developer tools to ensure compatibility among ActivityPub implementations. This #interoperability also benefits users and will lead to individuals having more control over their data.

https://sovereigntechfund.de/tech/activitypub-test-suite/

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/

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/

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/

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/

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/

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

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/

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/

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/