OpenUK September 2025 Newsletter 1

Zin Lwin

4th September 2025

Dear Readers,

Welcome back. We hope that you have had a fantastic break and are back, raring to go, as there is lots to engage with. OpenUK’s 2025 Awards, our 6th edition, will see nominations close on Sunday, 14th December at midnight UK. So get nominating whilst you can. Our 2025 Awards Ceremony and Gala dinner will take place to celebrate the UK’s leadership in open source on 4th December at the House of Commons.

OpenUK will be actively engaging over the next few weeks with the government on a number of activities. Firstly, we will co-host two events with SME4Labour at the Labour Party Conference – the first on Sovereignty versus Resilience in our Digital Infrastructure and the second on AI. I will also be attending a private roundtable with the Secretary of State for Digital, Peter Kyle, taking feedback on copyright and AI. We will share an update on this afterwards. The OpenUK roundtables in Parliament between now and Christmas will be announced shortly, in addition to the Skills one scheduled for 5th November.

As always, OpenUK will be working on a number of reports and looking to many of you to support that content from AI in India to the UK’s open source landscape and skills. OpenUK’s work with and advice to UKRI and the UK’s public sector on building sustainable software infrastructure through funding and using open source will be shared in more detail as soon as we are able. This week saw our first step in workshopping OpenUK’s recommendations to UKRI, with Liz Rice, Matt Barker, Paula Kennedy and Martin Woodward joining Amanda Brock with UKRI and DSIT.

India AI Impact Summit Report

Our team engaged with several hundred people across a range of roles from business to development, students to CEOs in our first series of events in India on the Road to the AI Impact Summit.

This work was the start of an engagement over the next 6 months that will see OpenUK build reporting and host a fringe event with its new sister organisation OpenHQ. We will share our trip report shortly and are now working with local collaboration partners on a report on AI Openness and the India landscape to be shared around Bangalore Tech Week and on our plans to host an AI Openness Fringe at the AI Impact Summit. If you are interested in being involved do let us know.

OpenUK Awards 6th Edition, 2025 Nominations Open

Have you nominated someone in the 6th edition of OpenUK’s Awards in 9 categories? The most established open source awards in the world, now in their 6th year. `Nominees must have a connection to the UK – being tax resident in the last 12 months, having a registered company or, in the case of projects, a strong UK contributing presence. Nominations are free to make, and shortlisted nominees will be invited to a black tie dinner in the House of Commons.

We do not charge for nominations or attendance at this event and are grateful to all of our sponsors who make this possible. Please share widely, encourage those who merit recognition to put themselves forward and nominate friends and colleagues for a prestigious OpenUK Award before nominations close on Sunday, 14th September.

Nominate Now

GitHub Secure Open Source Fund

🔐 OpenUK is proud to support the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund as an Ecosystem Partner. Learn how the fund has already helped 71 important open source projects improve security, fix vulnerabilities, issue CVEs, and strengthen security practices across AI, and more. Learn more

OpenUK Roundtable: Filling the Skills Gap with Open Source

Our political engagement continues after the Summer Recess with a combination of events at political party conferences and further roundtables in Parliament. We will be covering the inevitable AI, as well as Digital Sovereignty. More roundtables will be shared shortly and our re-scheduled Skills Gap session will be hosted by Sarah Edwards MP, on 5 November. These events are held in committee rooms within the Palaces of Westminster, under Chatham House rules and are not open to press.

Would you like to write for the OpenUK Blog?

The OpenUK blog shares a wide range of topics, and we hope it is of relevance and interest to our community. We are looking forward to reading your insights and sharing them on our blog. Accepted blogs will be shared across our social media and newsletter. You can find out more about submission as well as read our blogs on our blog page.

Submit Blog

OpenUK Events

“Agent Open Unconference”, in collaboration with the AI Alliance, will continue the exploration of agentic AI in our recent report. Register now to be part of the conversation.

Save the date – 21 October at Civo Tech Junction

Too close to Christmas? No such thing….

Join us as the open source community let their hair down and celebrate Christmas at our Party on 16 December

OpenUK Meetups

Visit OpenUK Meet-up Page to see our meet-ups and to sign up. We host monthly London and digital meet-ups and are interested in extending this across the UK so please contact us to get involved.

Upcoming Events

Access to research software: Opportunities and challenges

8 September 2025, Paris/ Online

RSECon25

9 – 11 September 2025, Coventry

9 Sep, “The rise of open source in research” Keynote by Amanda Brock

OpenUK in the Press

The US’s AI Action Plan says open source and open models will be encouraged, but how? asks Amanda Brock
TechNative Features OpenUK’s AI Openness Report
Cliff Saran includes Amanda Brock’s comments in his report on OpenAI’s first open models
Amanda Brock’s thoughts on Sovereignty are featured by Raconteur, saying, “Every country should seek the best innovation for its citizens. And that is accessed through global collaboration. Tech stacks must be open and visible”
Looking at whether the US Action Plan Stacks up, IT Pro, quote Amanda Brock saying on copyright that today’s challenges “would never really be resolved by copyright. More appropriate long-term solutions are needed.”
Looking at the plans for Public investment in open source FOSSForce quote Amanda Brock, including that “a joined-up approach across geographies is critical to the future of funding.”