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OpenUK March 2026 Newsletter – a National Open Source Foundation for the UK

Zin Lwin
5th March 2026

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Dear Readers,

Today, we share our recommendations to UK Research and Innovation, in respect o making the UK the Home of Open Source, as we move towards the next phase and consulting industry experts on building a National Open Source “Foundation” for the UK. We’re happy to receive comments from interested parties.

A busy international focus in the last few weeks has seen us take on a key role at the AI Impact Summit in India and produce a report in real time to share the AI openness conversation with everyone. This saw a significant positive step in the open source conversation being central for the first time in a summit, but some disappointing outputs failing to understand the central tenants of open source.

We were delighted to see the UK AI Minister, Kanishka Narayan, MP announce that the “UK will be the home of open source AI” and to have worked with him and some of our community – David Soria Parras, Kunal Kushawa, Dr Laura Gilbert, CBE, Matt Barker, and Sal Kimmich to bring this video together for the Summit and to share this with an audience of 1200 attendees at the High Commission party hosted by UK High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron, and to launch this with Kanishka and I speaking.

OpenUK Proposes a UK National Open Source Foundation

Having won a competitive tender to advise UK Research and Innovation on sustainable infrastructure, OpenUK has today publicly shared a short paper of its recommendations including the build of a National Open Source Foundation, with an incubator/ accelerator to support economic development. The proposed model would be replicable and of benefit to all nations.

We are now commencing our second phase of work on this project, building out the model and will be consulting colleagues in the UK and internationally, to learn from experience and hear their guidance.

You can read the high level proposals in this short public report, enabling the UK to become the Home of Open Source AI, an aspiration shared recently by our UK AI Minister, Kanishka Narayan MP.

Recommendations for Sustainable Open Source Infrastructure

MWC

Following a productive few days at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, OpenUK will be hosting a Leaders’ Lunch with the Smart Internet Labs’ Joiner Platform on 19th March in London, to focus on AI for networks. We’ll also be producing a short paper afterwards to share the discussion. If you are a leader in the telco sector and would like to join us please message, mailto:admin@openuk.uk

India AI Impact Summit Review

OpenUK and its sister OpenHQ, attended the India AI Impact Summit, participating with our colleagues in multiple events, hosting two of our own events – a Workshop on “MCP, Open Standards and Data” and a panel focused on resilience “Building Resilience and breaking dependency in enterprise and public sector AI – how can open source support this?” moderated by Amanda Brock with Jimmy Wales, Laura Gilbert CBE, Anastasia Stasenko and Mishi Choudary.

Read the AI Openness AI Impact Summit Report

Roundtable in Parliament

Register Now

SOOCon On The Road

We are now working on the dates and content for our SOOCon on the Road through 2026 and will be opening a call for content shortly. Watch this space for more information and ticket registration.

Learn more

OpenUK Response to the European Commission Call for Evidence: “Towards European Open Digital Ecosystems” 3 February, 2026

Read Now

OpenUK in the Press

OpenUK in the Podcast

Amanda Brock discusses the need for AI openness in the Voices of Impact – India AI Impact Summit podcast

Listen Now

Events OpenUK will be at

KubeAuto Day Europe 23 March || Amsterdam

Register Now

Rwanda Meetup 11 March || Rwanda

Register Now

Events of Interest

Monki Gras 2026 19 – 20 March || London

Register Now

KubeCon + Cloud Native Con Europe 23 – 26 March || Amsterdam

Register Now

We will shortly be announcing our new suite of OpenUK and OpenHQ Ambassadors.

If you are interested in being more involved in our work, do let us know by dropping us a note mailto:admin@openuk.uk. Please follow us on LinkedIn to keep up with our news as it happens between newsletters.

We are currently renewing annual sponsorships and working with partners on various events, including small group dinners, SOOCon26 on the road and of course, our Awards sponsorship.

We are also recruiting new members of the team and looking for a community and events manager and a research and policy managers – you can find the job descriptions and application requirements at openuk.uk/recruitment.

Best wishes,

Amanda

 

Professor Amanda Brock, CEO

 


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