Projects
DC-EDIC's first concrete projects: 100-Day Challenges that scale and connect existing national commons, and the EU Sovereign Tech Fund pilot.
Two projects to start
We start with two concrete projects, both endorsed by the Assembly. The first scales the national workspace suites Europe already has, so they work across borders. The second keeps the open-source components they depend on sustainably funded through a pooled investment pilot.
These projects are co-funded by the European Union through the Digital Europe Programme. The programme brings together DC-EDIC, DINUM (France), the Center for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS, Germany), the Sovereign Tech Agency (Germany), and Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken (The Netherlands).
1. 100-Day Challenges
A scoped 100-day sprint that takes existing open-source commons, improves their interoperability, and makes them deployable at European scale.
Each challenge follows the same model: identify a shared bottleneck with member states and communities, select a team, build in the open, ship in 100 days.
Where we start
Europe already has national open-source workspace suites: France’s LaSuite, Germany’s openDesk, The Netherlands’ MijnBureau. The first challenges focus on making these suites work together: shared formats, shared components, and deployment paths that let any administration pick them up.
The detailed scope and timeline will be defined in the Implementation Strategy, to be developed with member states and adopted by the Assembly.
2. EU Sovereign Tech Fund pilot
All modern software depends on open-source infrastructure components. Yet their maintenance and security is chronically underfinanced. Europe treats physical infrastructure (roads, energy grids, telecommunications) as a strategic public good. Its digital infrastructure deserves the same treatment.
The pilot
Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency has pioneered a model for public investment in critical open digital infrastructure, commissioning critical work on 100+ open-source projects including cURL, FreeBSD, GNOME, Python, PHP, and OpenSSH.
DC-EDIC is piloting a coordinated European mechanism, the EU Sovereign Tech Fund, that builds on this experience. A 12-month pilot to:
- Identify and invest in the open-source components that Europe depends on most
- Reduce fragmentation between national funding efforts without creating duplicative structures
- Keep critical infrastructure alive, secure, and compliant with the Cyber Resilience Act
- Test the model in practice before any scaling decisions: funding logic, governance, cross-border coordination
Why a pilot, not a permanent structure
Build on existing experience, test in practice, evaluate, derive a scalable European model. Tangible results within one year, with a structured evaluation report and policy recommendations.
What comes next
These two projects are the starting point, not the full scope. As the consortium grows and new members join, new project areas will emerge from shared priorities.