OpenUK September Newsletter 2

Zin Lwin

29th September 2026

Dear Readers,

We are close to announcing our Awards shortlist, so watch this space for a further message with the shortlisted nominees in the next few days.

If you are in London why not join either our Agentic AI in Financial Services or Rising Ambassador meet-ups in October.

We’ll be in Belfast on 6 October with Andrew Bolster, Chris Plank, Emma Mullholland, Hannah Foxwell, John Murphy, Justin Cormack, Kate Nicholl MLA, Marc Strathie, Martin Woodward, Michael Drury, Michael Shanks, Phil Weir, and Rebecca Lutton.

Most of all, please take this opportunity to complete our survey if you are in the UK, before it closes on 5 October.

Last Call: Open Source Survey 26 Closes 5 Oct

Please take some time in the next few days to support our work by completing the survey, which closes for UK responses on 5 October. Giving us 20-30 minutes of your time helps turn anecdotal information about open source into evidence that policymakers, funders and employers act on. Doesn’t matter what you do or what sector you work in; the data will help us hugely.

This year is open to an international audience for the first time. Our international survey closes on 31 October.

For the first time, we take on AI alongside open source across the surveys.

We built the questions for the survey with our Economists in Residence, The PSC.

Your answers feed directly into State of Open: The UK Report for 2026, which we publish later this year.

Complete the survey

SOOCon26 On The Road – Belfast

SOOCon26 On The Road Belfast speaker line-up, 6 October 2026

SOOCon26 On The Road arrives in Belfast on Tuesday 6 October, 10.00 –18:00, at the Ulster Bank Accelerator, Donegal Square East.

We’ll be hearing from Professor Amanda Brock of OpenUK, Andrew Bolster of Black Duck, Chris Plank of NatWest, Emma Mulholland of Mullholland Product Practice, Hannah Foxwell of AI for the Rest of Us, John Murphy of the Department for Communities, Justin Cormack of Docker, Inc., Kate Nicholl MLA of the Legislative Assembly for Belfast South, Marc Strathie of the Institute of Directors (IoD), Martin Woodward of GitHub, Michael Drury of n8n, Michael Shanks of Budibase, Phil Weir of Flax & Teal, and more.

Buy tickets including catering for £149.

To request one of our allocation of free tickets for students, those between jobs and community, please email mailto:admin@openuk.uk.

There’s still time to join our volunteer staff at the event.

Thanks to our sponsors, Ulster Bank for providing their venue and to our sponsors NatWest, Arm, Microsoft, GitHub, ControlPlane, and Percona.

Buy tickets or volunteer

Plans for Cambridge and Bristol are still in progress. State of Open Con returns to London on 9-10 February 2027, with the CFP and ticket sales opening this autumn.

Rising Ambassadors: October Meet-up

Our first in a series of meet-ups for our Rising Ambassadors – a cohort of future leaders who are 30 or under or have less than 10 years in open source will take place at RedBadger on Wednesday 21 October, 18:00-20:30. The evening brings together our Ambassadors in an opportunity to build your connections across open source and AI and also to build skills. If you are interested in joining their evening, then contact mailto:admin@openuk.uk.

OpenUK Rising Ambassadors Meetup, 21 October 2026, Red Badger, London

Our first cohort of 27 Rising Ambassadors was launched in London in September, and if you missed the Launch, then you can watch a Showcase, with 9 of them sharing their work on AI YouTube.

Watch the showcase

Agentic AI and Financial Services Meetup

Our London meet-up series returns on Thursday 22 October, 18:00–20:30, at Infosys, 10 Upper Bank Street, Canary Wharf. We’ll be looking at how agentic technologies are being developed and deployed across financial services.

Tickets are free thanks to Infosys, and pizza and drinks are provided. Places are limited, so if you can’t make it, please cancel on Luma so someone else can have your spot. You’ll need photo ID to get into the building.

Series of blogs on AI and Finance

Clare Schramm, OpenUK Board Director, offers us 3 blog posts. The first “Your AI agent shouldn’t spend blindly: open standards keep it honest”, in the second she tests closed, open-weight and open source models against SS1/23’s five principles. She argues that open-weight models move development, validation and risk mitigation away from vendor attestation and into evidence the bank controls itself, and in the third “Why banks should care that quantum SDKs are open source”.

Your AI agent shouldn’t spend blindly: open standards keep it honest

Read blogpost

Open-weight models and SS1/23 blog post by Clare Schramm

Open-weight models and SS1/23: can you validate what you can’t fully open?

Read blogpost

Why banks should care that quantum SDKs are open source

Read blogpost

Open-weight models and SS1/23 blog post by Clare Schramm

Other OpenUK Upcoming Events

Space Tech Radar Launch, Fieldfisher, 2 Swan Lane, London, 29 October, 13:00 – 17:00, Sign up here
AI Policy Day, Fieldfisher, Swan Lane, London, 2 December, 10:00 – 16:00, contact mailto:admin@openuk.uk to register
Rising Ambassadors Meetup, Red Badger, 2 Old Street Yard, London, 24 November, 18:00 – 20:30, mailto:admin@openuk.uk to register

All events require advance registration