“Both the presentations on the first day and the workshops on the second day, which we had organised at the request of our network, offered the many new members in particular the opportunity to get to know each other better”, says Carina Tüllmann, COO of the Open Logistics Foundation, pleased with the positive response. “At the same time, they were able to identify points of contact for new, joint projects.”
Dr. Stephan Peters, Chairman of the Board of the Open Logistics Foundation, and Andreas Nettsträter, CEO of the Open Logistics Foundation, began by welcoming participants from all over Europe to the Spielfeld Digital Hub Berlin. Miriam Seyffarth, Head of Political Affairs at the Open Source Business Alliance, drew the participants’ attention to the Cyber Resilience Act. With the new regulations, which are expected to come into force in 2027, the European Union aims to improve the security of digital products. The new regulations affect all companies that develop and use software – both proprietary and open source software.
Dr. Christian Hoeppler, Open Source Officer at Bosch Research, then took a look at how companies plan and organise the use and development of open source software. He emphasised the importance of open source strategies. In their contribution, Prof. Michael Henke and Carina Culotta from the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML referred to the role of procurement in the question of whether companies should rely on proprietary or open source software.
Finally, Dr. Manuel Hoffmann from Harvard Business School in Bosten provided the figure of the day in his presentation “The Value of Open Source”: if there were no open source software, companies would have to spend 3.5 times more on software than they currently do.
At the request of the members, the Head Office of the Open Logistics Foundation organised a second day with a total of four workshops. Each participant had the opportunity to exchange ideas with experts on two topics. In the “Legal Update” by Dr. David Saive, Legal Product Owner at the Open Logistics Foundation, further information on new regulations in transport law was on the agenda. In the communication workshop, the participants developed ideas for joint, integrated public relations work. In the awareness workshop, the participants deciphered readiness factors for open source software; the procurement workshop focused on defining decision criteria for using open source software.
After two days filled with ideas and input for practical work in their companies and organisations as well as for the Open Logistics Foundation’s Innovation Community, the participants returned home with the declared intention of creating something new together.