OpenUK

A new day dawning here in Shanghai. And my first full day is being spent as a guest speaker at the inaugural World Open Source Summit (WOSS), looking at global collaboration and how we build more cohesive governance around open source and AI. Led by Prof Zhang Guofeng, the summit brings together the public and private sectors from Shanghai, alongside a small group of international speakers, to focus on the global future of openness. Open source is in an interesting position. Its success and critical role creates new risks, including the danger that its narrative gets hijacked and we lose sight of the premise it was built on. For me, part of the shift is moving away from the outdated idea that “everything belongs to me” towards “everything is available to me.” That brings some real challenges: Explanation - We need a stronger evidence and research base for open source, including the work we’re doing at OpenUK and OpenHQ. Governance - We need to find neutral territory that can work across geopolitical differences. Institutional structures - Open source depends on the ability for innovation to flow, often in ways that don’t sit comfortably with traditional institutional control. It’s good to have the opportunity to explore some of this here in Shanghai and to contribute to today’s AI session. I’ll be attending and speaking at more AI and open source events over the next few days. Given everything I’m hearing about Shanghai’s place in China’s AI ecosystem, I’m also expecting to see plenty of embodied AI while I’m here. More on that soon.

State of Open Con 26 is On The Road 🚘, and Early Bird Tickets for Belfast, on 6 Oct, are available at a discounted £99 until 10 Sep - link to buy tickets in the first comment! We'll cover a wider range of open source topics on the day, and you can guarantee that there will be a fair level of debate around sovereignty in the AI Stack and, of course, security as we look at open source software, data, hardware, standards and AI. Early bird tickets until midnight on 10 Sep, and the price increases to £149 on 11 Sep. Tickets include catering and the conference party. Free ticket allocation is available for the community, students and those between jobs. Please send an application explaining which category and how you qualify to receive an individual code to mailto:admin@openuk.uk Speaker reveal on 11 Sep, so please stay tuned. Thanks to Ulster Bank for providing the venue and to our sponsors: Arm, NatWest, GitHub, Microsoft, ControlPlane, and Percona. Tables and sponsorship opportunities available. We are also looking for volunteers to support the event on the day; check out the link in the first comment.

AI Openness is a hot topic this year, and you can recognise UK leadership in this by nominating a project, organisation or individual in the AI category of the 7th OpenUK Awards. The AI category is kindly sponsored by nolabs.ai and open for nominations until midnight UK on 13 September. A short list of up to 3 finalists will be shared by our Judges in September. Shortlisted nominees will be invited to our Gala Awards Ceremony and Dinner, where the winners will be revealed.

Thanks for the shoutout of our report NVIDIA Max Beverton-Palmer. Congratulations to the Hugging Face team Thomas Wolf Link to full report in comment.

Congratulations to our Ambassador Srinivasan Venkataramanan on this award 👏👏👏

Open Data leadership from the UK is celebrated in our 7th annual OpenUK Awards, with the open data category sponsored by Open Data Institute. You can nominate a UK-based organisation or individual for the award until midnight UK on 13 September. Use the link in the 1st comment to nominate and get full details. A short list of up to 3 finalists will be shared by our Judges in September. Shortlisted nominees will be invited to our Gala Awards Ceremony and Dinner, where the winners will be revealed.

Congratulations to our Ambassador Louisa Denly on being named in Tech Women 100

Celebrate the UK's contribution to Open Hardware by nominating someone or a project in the UK for our 7th annual OpenUK Awards, made possible thanks to the category sponsored by lowRISC CIC. The 7th Annual OpenUK Awards until midnight UK on 13 September. Use the link in the 1st comment to nominate.  A short list of up to 3 finalists will be shared by our Judges in September. Shortlisted nominees will be invited to our Gala Awards Ceremony and Dinner, where the winners will be revealed. Full terms also available via the link.

Nominate a project or person in our Open Source Software category sponsored by Red Badger in the 7th Annual OpenUK Awards until 13 September. Use the link in the 1st comment to nominate. A short list of up to 3 finalists will be shared by our judges in September. Shortlisted nominees will be invited to our Gala Awards Ceremony and Dinner, where the winners will be revealed.