Events

Handelsblatt Summit Future IT 2026

The digital transformation is gaining new momentum: technological innovations are advancing at an exponential rate. Artificial intelligence, demands for Digital Sovereignty and cyber security are fundamentally transforming business models and management structures. IT decision-makers are called upon to combine operational efficiency with the strategic assessment of future technologies such as Agentic AI. In the field of cyber security, AI has taken a significant evolutionary step forward. This is fundamentally changing the cyber security landscape and heightening concerns about a new wave of cyber attacks. The Handelsblatt Summit Future IT, taking place from 7 – 9 September 2026 under the motto “Scaling and Innovating in the Era of AI”, will explore how strategic IT management is thus becoming, more than ever, a decisive factor in a company’s success in guiding it successfully through the digital transformation. On the topic of “Digital Sovereignty in (Corporate) Reality – Aspiration versus Reality”, Alexander Smolianitski (Head of Products & Delivery, ZenDiS) will take part in a discussion on the second day of the congress, alongside Ludwig Eggersdorfer (KGAL), Erik Moeller (Sovereign Tech Agency) and Ralf Werner (Open Grid Europe).

Horizons by heise 2026

At Horizons by heise, digital transformation becomes a tangible reality: under the guiding question “How can digital transformation really succeed?”, the conference brings together executives, technology decision-makers and innovation leaders from business, public administration and academia to not just talk about transformation, but to tackle it head-on with concrete use cases and clear strategies. Digital Sovereignty also plays an important role here. Pamela Krosta-Hartl (Managing Director of ZenDiS) will explore why genuine Digital Sovereignty requires more than just a location promise, and how companies can strategically embed data sovereignty, in two presentations:

• 12:00h: Inspirational talk “Digital Sovereignty: Servers in Germany – and Everything’s Fine?” | Pamela Krosta-Hartl
• 12:15h: Panel “Data under control: Sovereignty as a Competitive Advantage” | With Pamela Krosta-Hartl, Katja Garcia Vila (MTU Areo Engines) and others

Bitkom Forum Open Source 2026

Under the motto ‘Open Source – Open Values’, the Bitkom Forum Open Source 2026 will focus on the question of what specific added value open ecosystems and collaboration create for business, public administration and society – and what values open source stands for. Together with representatives from business, politics, public administration and open source communities, discussions will focus on how openness can be translated into concrete strategies. In this context, Julian Schauder (Team Lead DevSecOps, ZenDiS) will shed light in his presentation “From Suppliers to Partners: The Software Supply Chain as a Governance Task for the Digital Society” on the concept of modern Digital Sovereignty and how ZenDiS acts as a link between the market and the public sector: infrastructure initiatives such as openCode and the Secure Government Container Initiative provide general basic services; openDesk opens the way to customers and serves as a framework for operators and manufacturers on how to achieve a partnership-based market.

KGSt-FORUM 2026

Under the motto “Network. Municipality. | Experience • Inspire • Strengthen”, the largest local government networking event in the German-speaking world will take place once again from 16 to 18 September, bringing together administrative experts from local authorities and institutions to discuss current issues in local government practice and develop forward-looking solutions. Digital Sovereignty is also a key theme at this year’s event, at which ZenDiS will be taking to the stage to discuss various aspects of Digital Sovereignty – from the local to the European level – across three panels:

• 09:00 – 10:30h: Panel "How Sovereign Is Open Source? Theory Passed! And What Does Practice Tell Us?" | With Leonhard Kugler (Managing Director, ZenDiS), Johann Bizer, Anika Groß, Martin Hoffmann, Lars Hoppmann and Stefanie Kaulich
• 11:30 – 13:00h: Panel “Sovereign Cloud: Thinking and Acting on a European Scale – Cloud Platforms for Modern Public Administration in Europe” | With Leonhard Kugler, Christian Engelhardt, Christina Rost, Nikolaus Hagl and Luca Franke
• 15:30 – 17:00h: Panel “Municipalities, Cloud and Sovereignty – Between Pragmatic Day-to-Day Practicality and Strategic Independence: A Realistic Look at the Cloud Future of Municipalities" | With Victor Moster (Product Manager, ZenDiS), Peter Adelskamp, Michael Clivot, Laura Dornheim, Holger Drust, Stefan Hiltrop and Rena Wißmeier

Informatik Festival 2026

The Informatik Festival, organised by the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.), focuses on current debates, future trends and scientific, political and societal issues relating to computer science. Digital Sovereignty also plays a central role here. As part of the programme block ‘Digital Sovereignty – NOW or Never’, participants will work together to identify solutions for a sovereign digital future. In his talk ‘Operationalising sovereignty: How technological dependencies can be transformed into concrete capacity for action", Leonhard Kugler (Managing Director, ZenDiS) draws on practical experience with open digital infrastructures and software supply chains to demonstrate why sovereignty does not arise solely from individual “sovereign solutions”, but rather why structures in which standards, communities and markets interact are crucial, thereby enabling technological capacity for action to scale sustainably.

European Resilience Summit Berlin

The European Resilience Summit Berlin brings together Europe’s leading business leaders, decision-makers and technology executives to discuss digital resilience and sovereign infrastructure. In the panel “The Hybrid Sovereign State: Can Europe build digital resilience without decoupling from global platforms?” moderated by Marc Reinhardt (Capgemini), Alexander Smolianitski (Head of Products & Delivery, ZenDiS), Stormy-Annika Mildner (Aspen Institute Germany) and Ansgar Baums (Microsoft) will discuss what Digital Sovereignty means in practice, which dependencies strengthen resilience and which create risk, and how hybrid operating models may become the foundation of Europe's future digital state.

Open Source Impulses: Making Internal Administrative Processes More Efficient through Open Source

Open source software offers public administration tangible benefits in terms of transparency and security. At the same time, the reorganisation of internal processes and the switch from proprietary software to open source can present a challenge for users. For many employees, the digital workplace is the most visible aspect of the digitalisation of public administration and, at the same time, one of the most demanding areas in the context of change. Initiatives such as openDesk demonstrate how open-source-based solutions for communication, collaboration and document management can be developed. In practice, the question arises as to how such approaches can be integrated into existing structures, operated and adopted by staff. During the panel discussion, Leonhard Kugler (Managing Director of ZenDiS), amongst others, will share experiences from current projects – ranging from typical challenges relating to implementation, operation, support, training and integration into existing systems, to the necessary prerequisites for establishing open-source-based workplaces sustainably and on a larger scale within the public sector.

27. ÖV-Symposium NRW

How can Digital Sovereignty be achieved in a federal state such as North Rhine-Westphalia? The 27. ÖV-Symposium will focus on practical experience, exchange of ideas and perspectives from the public administration sector. Local authorities and regional governments report on their digitalisation projects and discuss ways to achieve a self-determined, resilient and sustainable public administration – with Digital Sovereignty serving as a key guiding principle. However, when it comes to implementation, there is often a lack of clear benchmarks for political and strategic decisions. What criteria do we use to assess sovereign IT solutions? How can dependencies be systematically assessed and reduced? And what do concrete sovereign solutions look like in practice – particularly in crisis and failure scenarios? Malin Roppel (ZenDiS) will present the catalogue of criteria for Digital Sovereignty developed by ZenDiS through an open consultation in her talk “Resilient and Self-Determined in a crisis: Criteria for Sovereign IT” and will demonstrate, using the testing of the openDesk office and collaboration suite as a sovereign emergency workstation, how effective these criteria are in practice.

Digital Masterclass Ruhr 2026

Whoever holds the data holds the power! Data sovereignty as a location factor for SMEs in the Ruhr Region

Control over their own business and customer data is vital for SMEs. At the same time, many companies and public sector organisations currently rely primarily on solutions provided by major US tech conglomerates. What does this mean for the protection of trade secrets, IT security, compliance with data protection laws, and so on? And what solutions are actually available to achieve greater digital self-determination and independence? The Digital Masterclass Ruhr, organised by G DATA and FUNKE Media Sales NRW, offers perspectives and approaches to these questions. As part of this, Lea Beiermann (Partnership Lead, ZenDiS) will present the ZenDiS Sovereignty Criteria as a potential solution. The catalogue of criteria was developed by ZenDiS in collaboration with stakeholders from government, business, academia and civil society as part of a public consultation. The proposed criteria demonstrate how dependencies can be systematically reduced and what technical and organisational conditions are necessary to ensure digital self-determination in the long term.

Public IT

Public IT is organised by c’t and heise, specifically targeting those responsible for IT and digital transformation in the public sector. The event focuses on sovereign cloud and on-premise solutions, as well as automation and artificial intelligence. In practical sessions, participants will learn how Digital Sovereignty and efficient end-to-end digitisation can be implemented from a technical perspective. Digital Sovereignty is a central goal of policy and administration, but the term is often used inconsistently. In this context, Pamela Krosta-Hartl (Managing Director, ZenDiS) will demonstrate, in her presentation ‘Making Digital Sovereignty Measurable: Criteria for a Sovereign Administration’, how critical dependencies within public administration can be assessed and how solutions can be identified to enhance its capacity to act.