[Ended] OSPOs for Good 2023: Building & Designing Cooperative Digital Infrastructure

Date	21 June 2023
Venue	United Nations Headquarters, New York
Mode	In-person with remote panels

Sincere thanks to all who attended and made this first edition of OSPOs for Good a resounding success.

Event Summary

The event kicked off with the UN Secretary-General Technology Envoy, Mr. Amandeep Singh Gill, and the UN OICT representative, Mr. Bernardo Mariano Jr., delivering keynote remarks, sharing their insights and perspectives on the role of open source technologies in driving positive societal impact and achieving the United Nations' mandates and goals.

Participants actively engaged in diverse activities, including panel discussions, round table discussions, workshops, and networking sessions. These sessions covered a range of topics such as the roles of OSPOs in government networks, showcasing OSPOs' success stories for community impact, cross-border collaboration in open source digital infrastructure, and the importance of open source for Sustainable Development Goals.

Event Description

This action symposium aims to address the issue of wasted potential by fostering collaboration among government, academia, and industry through a novel cooperative infrastructure. The goal is to work together towards achieving positive outcomes for society. Connecting OSPOs for Good will help build on the existing model of OSPOs and extend it further to address societal challenges and create positive social, environmental, and humanitarian impact. The event will provide education and challenges for attendees to join in building OSPOs for Good.

Through panel discussions, talks, workshops, and networking sessions, the event seeks to promote the concept of OSPOs for Good, explore infrastructure opportunities, and scale up initiatives while creating a dynamic and interactive environment for meaningful exchanges and collaboration among diverse stakeholders in the open source community. Participants will also have the opportunity to practice building and designing OSPOs for Good through sample organizations and case-studies, allowing for hands-on experience and practical application of the concepts discussed during the symposium.

Agenda

Pre Event Agenda: Tuesday - June 20, 2023

Time	Agenda
4:00p - 5:30p	Tour of the UN - Meeting at the UN Visitor entrance on 46th street and 1st Avenue
6:00p - …	OSPO++ / OFE Dinner - Sea Salt - 1123 1st Avenue, New York, NY

Main Event Agenda: Wednesday June 21, 2023

Time	Agenda
9:30a - 10:10a	Arrival, Check-In & Networking
10:10a - 11:00a	Welcome from Organizers
	Amandeep Singh Gill - United Nations Secretary-General Technology Envoy
	Bernardo Mariano Jr. - Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO) Assistant Secretary-General Office of Information and Communications Technology at United Nations
	Veronica Gaffey - Director-General of the Directorate-General for Informatics (DG DIGIT) (remote)
	Jacob Green - OSPO++ Founder & Institutes of Applied Open Source & Sachiko Muto - Research Institute of Sweden, Chairperson Open Forum Europe
11:00a - 11:30a	Panel 1: Global Institution of Open Source Session Moderator: Gijs Hilennius, EC OSPO (remote) Leslie Hawthorn - Sr Manager, Red Hat OSPO, Office of the CTO Kristie Whitaker - The Alan Turing Institute, & The Turing Way Harresh Pillay - Leader of All Things FOSS/OSPO Gautham Ravichander - Head Strategy, eGov Foundation Lacina Koné - CEO Smart Africa





11:30a - 11:45a	Break
11:45a - 12:00p	Cooperation Experiment Going Global: "Les Blue Hats Global" -> “BlueHats Global” Bastien Guerry - Head of the Free Software unit" within the French Inter-Ministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs Jacob Green - Founder OSPO++


12:00p - 12:30p	Panel 2: Government OSPOs & Constituent Good Session Moderator: Axel Thevenet (remote) Koos Steenbergen -Senior advisor and project leader at the Ministry of Netherlands Shelby Switzer - Director of Digital Services Baltimore City Maria Dalhage - Swedish Public Employment Service Hal Seki, Digital Agency Japan & Code for Japan




12:30p - 1:00p	Roundtable discussion: Envisioning Cooperating OSPOs Across Society Session Moderator: Paula Grzegorzewska Frederik Blachetta - CDO Federal Chancellery Mithusa Kajendran - UN - Office of Information and Communications Technology Jacob Green - OSPO++ Ana Jimenez Santamaria - Linux Foundation Gil Yehuda - US Bank Ashley Wolf - Github Christine Kim - Co-develop Adriana Groh - Sovereign Tech Fund Germany Jiri Marek - Masaryk University Kendal Fortney - University of Vermont Daniel Shown - St. Louis University Stephanie Lieggi - UC Santa Cruz
1:00p - 2:00p	Lunch & Networking
2:00p - 2:30p	Panel 3: Cross-Border Collaboration Nexus - a Baltimore Spotlight Session Moderator: Jacob Green Shelby Switzer - Director Digital Services, Baltimore CIty Andrew Wichmann - Johns Hopkins University, Tech Ventures Al Barry - Principle, AB Associates Seema Iyer - Senior Director The Hive USA for UNHCR
2:30p - 3:00p	Panel 4: Open Source - Key Enabler for Sustainable Development Goals Session Moderator: Omar Mohsine Vipul Siddharth - Open Source Technical Advisor, UNICEF Office for Innovation Eleonore,Fournier-Tombs - Head of Anticipatory Action and Innovation, UN University Lorena Cano - Innovation Specialist Inter-American Development Bank Allana Welch - Innovation, Technology & Research Hub, USAID


3:00p - 4:00p	Plenary Interactive Action Sessions - Let’s Cooperate
4:00p - 4:30p	Wrap-up & Next Steps
4:30p - 7:00p	Social @ UN Delegates Lounge

Post Agenda: Thursday - June 22, 2023

Location: Microsoft Building, 11 Times Square, New York, NY 10036

Time	Agenda
9:00a - 12:00p	OSPO++ Academic and All - Community Meeting
12:00p - 4:00p	Room available for co-working and continued ad-hoc discussions

Credits

Symposium Organizers

UN OSET: Moritz Fromageot

UN OICT: Omar Mohsine, Mithusa Kajendran, Benin Godfrey, Sebastian Rocca

OSPO++: Jacob Green

OpenForum Europe: Paula Grzegorzewska

RISE: Sachiko Muto

JHU: Dr. Adler Archer

The organizers wish to thank the speakers, UN OICT and UN OSET for hosting the event, and all the participants for their active contributions. See you again next year!

Conference highlights: OSPOs for Good Building & Designing Cooperative Digital Infrastructure

A whitepaper detailing the key points, challenges, outcomes and future directions of OSPOs is to be released on 21 November 2023 at OSOR Turns 15, Brussels