Michiel Leenaars - NLnet and NGI Zero: Working for the internet

Abstract

April 1st 1982, Teus Hagen launched the EUnet at the European Unix User Group (EUUG) spring conference, creating the first public wide area network in Europe. NLnet was born as part of a litter of ’national’ networks. Fifteen years later this community effort had grown into a foundation which had a company underneath that ran a flourishing business - which was sold to its American sister UUnet (named after the Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocol). Stichting NLnet used to proceeds to morph into a recognised public benefit organisation focused on achieving ‘an open information society’, and for the last 25 years has been funding the development of free, libre and open source technologies across the globe. Everything it funds is free and open source software and hardware, open standards and open content. This ranges from libre silicon chips, to open hardware GSM networks, projects like Wireguard and Jitsi - and much more. Meanwhile NLnet plays a strong role in the Next Generation Internet initiative set up by the European Commission. In this talk, Michiel Leenaars will dive into the current portfolio of projects, and talk about funding opportunities through the open calls of NLnet and NGI - in other words: how to get your project funded.

Biography

Michiel Leenaars (1972, Netherlands) is the chairperson of The Commons Conservancy. In daily life he is Director of Strategy at NLnet Foundation. and director of Internet Society Netherlands, one of the more sizable Internet Society chapters in the world. He is also a W3C liason officer for the Benelux Office of the World Wide Web Consortium. He currently leads two of the four Research & Innovation Actions of the Next Generation Internet initiative, NGI Zero Discovery and NGI Zero PET. He is active in a number of national and international organisations, such as OpenDoc Society (vice-chair), SIDN Fund (Board of Advisors), Digitale Infrastructuur Nederland, and Petities.nl foundation (treasurer). He is a member of the Netherlands committee for the UNESCO Information for All Programme.

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