Zürich, 13+14 June
About last week’s NGI Commons General Assembly: Developing a cultural identity
The General Assembly of the NGI Commons initiative took place last week in central Zürich, Switzerland. The purpose of this in-person meeting was to facilitate dialogue, decision-making, and coordination among consortium partners of the NGI Commons project.
Key elements of discussions:
- What are the strategic policy issues we are currently identifying? Following European elections, is there an impact on digital commons?
- Status and workflow: These updates are crucial for tracking progress, managing resources effectively, and ensuring that every partner organisations are informed about the project’s status.
- Event and workshop planning: strategic steps to ensure its success.
“The ‘NGI Commons’ embodies the essence of the “commons” within the Next Generation Internet Initiative (NGI). It aims to bolster its influence and contribution to Europe’s digital sovereignty. It seeks alignment with pertinent “digital commons” endeavours and outlines a strategic roadmap to steer subsequent investments towards technology that prioritises a human-centric approach.”
Monique Calisti, CEO of Martel Innovate and Project Coordinator of NGI Commons
The NGI Commons initiative is already six months old. It was a good time for consortium partners to disclose most recent advancements, hurdles, and prospects concerning digital commons. This was achieved through a meticulously planned agenda comprising keynote speeches and roundtable debates. Following a highly productive workshop in Amsterdam which focused on ‘Co-creating digital commons priorities for Europe’s digital decade,’ the General Assembly served as a platform for NGI Commons specialists across various tiers to articulate their individual insights regarding the significance of a comprehensive definition. For numerous individuals, digital commons represent communal public assets, with governance and societal structures holding pivotal roles.
To foster a genuine NGI Commons community, what is required might be a cultural paradigm shift. Comprehending the evolution of the NGI Commons European Union policy landscape necessitates extensive teamwork among various professionals at differing levels of proficiency and regulatory oversight.
The NGI Commons project was established as a response to the above-mentioned points. The project will contribute to a stronger integration of the NGI initiative and its vision and ecosystem with the digital/internet commons policies at the national and European levels.
NGI Commons will work on a long-term strategy for digital/internet commons based on a clear mapping of existing communities of commoners and commons. It will develop a smooth articulation of bottom-up activities of European commoners’ communities and top-down policy priorities (e.g., reuse of commons, avoiding overlaps), to eventually, build a more coherent funding landscape integrating national and European dimensions from public and private sectors.
