In-person only. (Please actively select/de-select the topics you plan to attend or not, we will only consider your registration for the actively selected tracks on a first come first serve base. By submitting your registration you confirm to follow the event code of conduct.)
The event is subject to the Chatham House Rule.
We will hold the second annual OpenChain and Friends event in Stuttgart from the 24th to the 26th of March 2026. (learn about last year’s edition here: https://openchainproject.org/news/2025/02/20/openchain-and-friends-stuttgart )
Main Event Location:
- Robert Bosch GmbH – Service and Supply Chain Campus (SCC) Feuerbach, Bregenzer Str. 26A, 70469 Stuttgart
Satellite Event Locations:
- Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation in Vaihingen, Gropiusplatz 10, 70563 Stuttgart
- Bosch Digital in Ludwigsburg, Groenerstraße 5/1, 71636 Ludwigsburg
Socializing Event Locations (on day 1):
- Wichtel Feuerbach, Stuttgarter Straße 21, 70469 Stuttgart
In Partnership With:
Topic Streams:
- Open Source Compliance and OSPOs – Open Source Compliance & OSPO – processes, automation, governance & NFRs
- Cybersecurity – Cybersecurity in the Software Supply Chain – CRA, SBOM requirements, ISO 18974, and good practices
- Women in Open Source – networking and cross-track contributions
- Embedded and Open Source Hardware – from chip design to licensing and IP questions
- Artificial Intelligence – AI Systems Engineering & Data Platforms – methods, tools, open platforms, open AI agents for resilient supply chains
- Digital Sovereignty and Open Source in Business – public/private collaboration, open source as a competitive factor
- Education – open trainings, infrastructure, new formats
- Automotive /SDV – Open Automotive Platform, Ecosystems, Tool Interoperability
- Cross-Innovation and Innovation Practices – potential of mixing creative industries and digital sovereignty ideas with industrial Open Source
- Linux OS and beyond – software supply chain from the Linux ecosystem perspective
on tuesday march 24th 2026:
Bjoern Schiessle Nextcloud
“Digital sovereignty isn’t about choosing your dependencies — it’s about eliminating them.”
– Björn Schiessle, Co-founder and Director of Sales Engineering at Nextcloud
Charley Mann & Florian Wohlrab OpenHW Foundation
“The Unified RISC-V IP Access Platform is absolutely critical to supporting technological sovereignty in Europe, and the OpenHW Foundation is committed to developing it into a sustainable, interoperable, and community driven resource for the wider RISC-V ecosystem. Open source collaboration is essential to ensuring a competitive playing field, and by working together, we will be able to go further, faster.”
– Florian Wohlrab, CEO, OpenHW Foundation
Dr.-Ing. Thomas Usländer Fraunhofer IOSB
„Beyond and precisely because of the AI hype there is need for a systematic approach to engineer, develop, deploy and operate AI systems. If not applied along the whole lifecycle, there is no sustainable and commercial benefit of an AI system.”
– Dr.-Ing. Thomas Usländer, Business Developer AI Systems Engineering, Fraunhofer IOSB, and head of the subprojects “AI Data Platform” and “AI Challenge” of the AI Alliance Baden-Württemberg
Aleksander Sadowski (ALSADO)
“Let’s empower sole inventors to become the manufacturers of tomorrow, securing our long term prosperity by establishing open-source software in manufacturing!”
– Aleksander Sadowski (ALSADO), a founder, inventor, author, developer and influencer in the German mechanical engineering industry
on wednesday march 25th 2026:
Prof. Dr. Ingo Weber (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft / TU Munich)
“George Box famously said: ‘All models are wrong, but some models are useful.’ This is also true for LLMs.
But to know how we can make them useful, openness in code, data, and governance helps.”
– Prof. Dr. Ingo Weber, Director for AI & Innovation at the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Full Professor and Chair of Information System Development and Operation in the Computer Science Department at the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology (Technical University of Munich)
Dr. Ingo Simonis (CTO Open Geospatial Consortium)
“The most powerful AI systems won’t be built in isolation. They’ll emerge from open platforms where diverse communities collaborate, share data, and validate solutions together”
– Dr. Ingo Simonis (CTO Open Geospatial Consortium)
on thursday march 26th 2026:
Shane Coughlan (Open Invention Network)
“Open source is community and innovation realized in its purest form, and our management of this paradigm is critical for sustainable, sovereign societies.”
– Shane Coughlan, Global Ambassador OIN 2.0, Open Invention Network
Dirk Targoni (Robert Bosch GmbH)
“Don’t avoid dependencies—master them: track everything, verify continuously, and enforce need‑to‑know. Open source isn’t the risk; opaque code is. As AI reshapes the security paradigm, our winning strategy is shared visibility and collaborative defense.”
– Dirk Targoni, Product Vulnerability and Incident Response Team at Robert Bosch GmbH, ASRG-S lead and co-organizer
Franz Loogen (e-mobil BW GmbH)
“Software increasingly defines our industry. Open collaboration strengthens the supply chain. Through the Automotive Software Collaboration BW and the FOSS‑LÄND Community, we provide tailored support for organisations of all kinds, including OEMs, SMEs, public organisations and research institutions.“
– Franz Loogen, President of e-mobil BW GmbH
Mary Meixia Wang (OpenChain)
“Our vision is a global supply chain where open source is delivered with trusted, transparent, and consistent process management, supported by standards such as ISO/IEC 5230 and ISO/IEC 18974. At the same time, the community must help each other understand how open source and AI together are reshaping modern business.”
– Mary Meixia Wang, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation OpenChain Project
Program Details
Program details and schedule are collaboratively developed and can be tracked in our repository: OpenChain and Friends Program 2026.
Overall Event Schedule (all days, all locations)
Final schedule (as of 2026-03-25+update increment 16 – including a link column to access the abstracts in the stream-specific agendas, where already available – updates will be regularly provided – stay tuned!)
OpenChainAndFriends_final_schedule_inc16.pdf
Topic-Stream specific schedules with details
- Artificial Intelligence
- Automotive / SDV
- Cross-Innovations
- CyberSecurity
- Digital Sovereignty and Open Source in Business
- Education
- Embedded and Open Hardware
- Linux OS and beyond
- Open Source Compliance and OSPO
- Women in Open Source
Hint: All contents still preliminary.
Contributing Communities and Marketplace
We will have many Open Source communities (also from the region) and most of them present themselves in the Community Marketplace in the hallway of the event for all three days. Come and join us!
BRONZE
Contact FOSS@e-mobilbw.de or helpdesk@lists.openchainproject.org for more information. We would love for you to be part of this, and to help contribute to our welcoming community of open source governance professionals. We welcome everyone from small, medium and large companies, local and national government, non-profit organizations, academica and also independent parties curious about what is happening in this space.
Colours in the program based on https://yeun.github.io/open-color/
Event is listed in https://foss.events/ ; https://dev.events/ ; and submitted to https://confs.tech/
