Change in the management

Bochum/Berlin, August 20, 2024 - Andreas Reckert-Lodde is leaving the management of the Center for Digital Sovereignty in Public Administration (ZenDiS) at the end of August. From his role as a federal civil servant in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Homeland (BMI), he has played a key role in setting up ZenDiS since 2020 and also took over the management on an interim basis when the GmbH was founded in December 2022.

Successfully transitioned from development to operations

Under his leadership, ZenDiS successfully made the transition from the start-up phase to operations within a few months, was able to recruit a highly experienced team and significantly advance two important projects with the Office & Collaboration Suite openDesk and the open source platform Open CoDE. At the same time, Andreas Reckert-Lodde built up a strong network with partners from the federal and state governments, other EU member states, the EU itself and the United Nations. Together with them, ZenDiS is working to strengthen digital sovereignty beyond national borders through the use of open source software. After four years of intensive development work, Andreas Reckert-Lodde is stepping down from the management of ZenDiS at his own request for personal reasons, and the process of appointing a successor is underway. On October 1, 2024, he will take over as Head of Staff Unit L 1 (Strategy, Strategic Communication, Management Support) at the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). In this role, he will work closely with BSI President Claudia Plattner and actively shape the BSI initiative "Cybernation Deutschland", among other things. Federal CIO Dr. Markus Richter underlines the importance of ZenDiS and highlights Andreas Reckert-Lodde's achievements: "Strengthening digital sovereignty is more important than ever in the face of multiple crises and geopolitical uncertainties. What Andreas Reckert-Lodde has achieved with ZenDiS in such a short space of time is absolutely remarkable and deserves the thanks of us all. The fact that even the United Nations now sees Germany as a pioneer in open source is not least thanks to him."

About ZenDiS

The Center for Digital Sovereignty in Public Administration (ZenDiS) was founded in 2022 by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs (BMI). As a competence and service center, ZenDiS supports public administration at federal, state and municipal level in securing its ability to act in the digital space in the long term - above all by eliminating critical dependencies on individual technology providers. To this end, ZenDiS is concentrating on promoting the use of open source software in public administration in the first expansion phase. ZenDiS is a limited liability company and is currently wholly owned by the federal government. A participation of the federal states is in preparation. ZenDiS is based in Bochum.