Owning the stack: Digital independence with open source infrastructure

As AI accelerates a global change in governance, governments face a critical choice: become dependent on external systems or secure the ability to operate independently. This session moves beyond the theory of sovereignty to the mechanics of autonomy.

Our panel of seasoned experts, with several decades of experience building open source software and programs inside and outside government, will explore how open source serves as the foundation for digital independence by providing the transparency to see the stack, the agency to change it, and the recourse to govern it. 

We will discuss the practical realities of maintaining local capacity, from the security of agentic AI and Continuous Authority to Operate (cATO) to the role of the public sector workforce as a critical layer of the stack. Following the FWD50 talk “AI is Rewriting the Rules. Who Controls the Outcome?” join us to further unpack how open source enables governments to not just use the latest technologies and also own the outcomes.