Launching openDesk 1.0 at the Smart Country Convention After previously speaking about our involvement in the openDesk project here, we were very excited to attend the Smart Country Convention in Berlin last week as part of the openDesk platform, where one of the standout moments of the event was th...
"How the German government failed to build a meaningful IT industry over the past thirty years due to the lack of knowledgeable workforce and a failed education system to train them, and is now looking into open source for help to get them out of their US controlled infrastructure."
So I would love if this would be the case (German gov using open soruce software) but tbh this reads like marketing bs to me, sorry. "Aims to transform public administration", "providing Germany’s public sector with a secure and open-source alternative". Yes, good. Nice. Cool. But are any government agencies are actually using it? I feel like if they wpild be they'd surely name them ...
Some figures for those wondering how broadly adapted this open source suite is.
Tchap: the trusted instant messaging service for the public sector used daily by 200,000 users. An extension of the Albert AI tool is planned for Tchap soon, during the summer.
State audio conference with nearly 8,000 users for 700 weekly meetings (2024 figure as of mid-May).
State web conference with 47,000 users for 10,000 weekly meetings (2024 figure as of mid-May).
State webinar: the webinar service which can accommodate up to 350 participants, public officials and interlocutors from outside the State (from the public, private or associative sectors) has recorded more than 800,000 users for 65,000 meetings weekly (2024 figure as of mid-May).
France transfer: the simple and secure solution for sending large files with 140,000 users having exchanged more than 350,000 letters (2024 figure as of mid-May).
Resana, a public sector collaborative platform with 140,000 users and nearly 800,000 documents shared/month (2024 figure as of mid-May).
They move slowly, as governments do, but they have a goal and a plan. It's not easy to switch and running contracts have to reach the end of their term but when these contracts are over the move will be huge.
I'm sure Germany is not a monolithic entity. It has different departments for different things and if you don't agree with them politically or dislike their actions, none of that has anything to do with them using tech for general administration purposes.