Francesca Bria's presentation articulates a distinctly European strategy for developing a digital economy grounded in digital sovereignty, ethical standards, and human rights, clearly differentiating it from the models adopted by the U.S. and China. Her talk emphasises the European Union's forward-thinking technological regulations, championing the use of open-source technologies, enhancing interoperability, promoting shared governance, enabling data sharing and portability, and maintaining rigorous privacy norms.
Bria will highlight successful initiatives she leads, looking at cities as laboratories for democratic innovation, such as Barcelona's implementation of participatory democracy through digital commons and Hamburg's commitment to public-interest data sharing. A central element of her vision is the proposal for a new 10 billion euro European EU Digital Sovereignty Fund, to finance public goods and services of general interest in the digital age. This ambitious fund aims to consolidate efforts to develop next-generation pan-European public digital infrastructures, dubbed āThe Europe Public Stackā. This initiative seeks to provide robust alternatives to dominant digital platforms by supporting the deployment of open AI models, decentralized applications, sovereign data spaces, open-source knowledge tools and content, privacy-focused digital IDs, and digital payment systems.
Echoing Bria's perspectives, the presentation advocates for a democratisation of the digital society in Europe, with a strong focus on open technology development for societal benefit and public interest governance of artificial intelligence and data.