Open Future Foundation

🤖 RightsCon starts next week! Join us on Tuesday, January 25 (10:15 CST–Taiwan time) for an essential discussion on Public AI as an infrastructure - democratizing the AI tech stack. In this session, hosted by Bertelsmann Stiftung, we'll explore how public options in the AI tech stack can create more equitable AI development and deployment. We'll map the path from training data to computational resources, examine dependencies, and explore solutions for a more democratic AI future. 🗣️ Join panelists Isabel Hou (Taiwan AI Academy), Alek Tarkowski (Open Future), Antonio Zappulla, OMRI (Thomson Reuters Foundation), and Felix Sieker and Teresa Staiger (Bertelsmann Stiftung), and don't miss this important conversation. https://www.rightscon.org/ #RightsCon #RightsCon2025 #PublicAI #PublicDigitalInfrastructure

tl;dr Insted of throwing money at some hyped up tech that creates little or no public value, address actual needs and dependencies. "Squaring the circle" - these are the words the European Commission itself uses to talk about the next multiannual financial framework... As discussions on the EU's next budget for 2028–2034 are already underway, we reiterate our recommendations based on an analysis of some of the current frameworks for financing digital transformation through EU public funds. Link in comment.

💶 New blog post: The next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) will shape the EU's future amid escalating geopolitical tensions, deepening political divides, and financial challenges.   Read Zuzanna Warso’s analysis of a recent EC communication and her recommendations on how the EU can better align its budget with digital transformation goals through prioritizing public digital infrastructure, balancing industry support with public value objectives, and adopting a more critical approach to tech in funding. https://lnkd.in/dTJn_EQU #PublicDigitalInfrastructure #DigitalCommons #TechPolicy

🇪🇺 Topic of the day: The EuroStack report, authored by Francesca Bria, Fausto Gernone, and Paul Timmers, and commissioned by Bertelsmann Stiftung. With a proposed €300 billion Sovereign Tech Fund and comprehensive framework for digital infrastructure, it's the most detailed blueprint yet for reducing EU's 80% dependence on foreign tech. Jan Krewer analyzes this initiative that could reshape Europe's technological future, focusing on 4 main points: 1. An ambitious contribution to European debates on digital sovereignty 2. The Big Question: What institutions are needed to implement this? 3. The Sovereign Tech Fund: Everything everywhere all at once? 4. What’s next? Political negotiations and hard trade-offs 💡 Read our full analysis: https://lnkd.in/dDwt7GHS #DigitalSovereignty #EuropeanTech #DigitalCommons #EuroStack

🎉 Open Future is leading CommonsDB, a European Commission-funded initiative to create a prototype registry of public domain and open-licensed works. Working with Liccium, Europeana Foundation, Wikimedia Sverige, and the Institute for Information Law (IViR), we're building essential copyright infrastructure for the digital age. The registry will enable rights status verification through public APIs using ISCC codes, rights metadata, and verifiable credentials. 🔎 Learn more about this 18-month journey to strengthen the Digital Commons: https://lnkd.in/d666jYMw #DigitalCommons #CopyrightInfrastructure #PublicDomain

What are Digital Commons, and how do they relate to Public Digital Infrastructure and Digital Sovereignty? The NGI Commons project tries to answer these questions. 📽️ To know more about the project, watch this video presentation by Nicholas Gates and Jan Krewer at #FOSDEM: https://lnkd.in/dA4m8Gvr 📑 For an in-depth look at two decades of Public Policy supporting Digital Commons, read our latest report: https://lnkd.in/dhbQT8Jp #DigitalCommons #PublicDigitalInfrastructure #PublicPolicy #OpenAccess

🎯 Burcu Kilic and our Board Member Renata Avila dive deep into Big Tech accountability and the future of digital governance in Tech Policy Press. “The last few weeks have been hard for Big Tech’s defenders and perhaps even for those who just wanted to give these firms the benefit of the doubt. They likely feel fooled and abandoned and are now questioning how we got here. Welcome to the harsh reality of money and politics!” 💡 Read their compelling analysis here: https://lnkd.in/dvXa7jGH #DigitalPolicy #TechAccountability #TheParadoxofOpen

🆕 We are pleased to welcome Doug McCarthy to Open Future as Senior Open Content Specialist. Doug will lead our work on the CommonsDB project, developing an EU Registry of Public Domain and open-licensed works. With his extensive Open GLAM expertise, international experience, and passionate commitment to free access and Public Domain reuse, Doug is the perfect addition to our mission of sustaining Digital Commons. https://lnkd.in/dkigr87E #OpenGLAM #DigitalCommons #PublicDigitalInfrastructure

While AI is being peddled as a solution to the climate crisis, unless its providers respect planetary boundaries, it will exacerbate rather than mitigate the disaster. A group of organizations, including the Open Future Foundation, is calling on political and industry leaders to curb AI's environmental impact.

🚨 AI must stay within planetary limits 🚨 Ahead of the AI Action Summit in France next week, 100+ civil society organisations from around the world have an urgent message for governments and industry leaders: The environmental and human costs of AI are too high – we need action now. Groups that have endorsed this statement span the issue areas of environmental and climate justice, human rights, open source technology and infrastructure, digital rights, feminist technology, and more. We outline 5 key demands: ⚡ Phase Out Fossil Fuels: The AI industry must urgently phase out fossil fuels across its entire supply chain. 💻 Computing Within Limits: AI computing infrastructure must urgently be brought within planetary limits. 🔗 Responsible Supply Chains: AI companies with substantial marketshare and economic and political influence bear the primary responsibility to ensure a responsible supply chain. 🌎 Equitable Participation: It is crucial to have public participation in decisions about what computation is used for and under what conditions. Climate and environmental activism must not be criminalised. 🔍 Transparency must be meaningful, and publicly accessible information about the social and environmental implications of proposed AI infrastructure and should be provided to the public before it is built or scaled. Read our statement ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eMnQtTqE #AIActionSummit #WithinBounds Green Web Foundation, critical infrastructure lab, Beyond Fossil Fuels, Green Screen Coalition, European Digital Rights, Association for Progressive Communications, Access Now, Amnesty International, AI Now Institute, Global Voices, Corporate Europe Observatory, Open Future Foundation, Greenpeace Greece, SUPERRR Lab, Whose Knowledge?, La Quadrature du Net, The Restart Project, Friends of the Earth U.S., Stand.earth, Open Knowledge Foundation, Coding Rights, Digital Grassroots, Right to Repair Europe