Univention Summit 2026 Attracts Record Attendance, Inspires Strong Exchange, and Delivers High-Caliber Insights into Digital Sovereignty
Bremen, February 2, 2026 – The Univention Summit 2026, held on January 28-29, 2026 in Bremen and via live stream, was a great success. Under the motto “LET’S CONNECT,” the event brought together around 550 IT decision-makers and practitioners from public administration, business, education, and the IT industry on site, as well as another 300 participants online. Against the backdrop of growing dependence on non-European technologies beyond their control, attendees discussed the opportunities and challenges of digital sovereignty and sustainable IT infrastructures.
One of the first highlights came during the opening keynote by Peter Ganten, CEO of Univention. He introduced Nubus for Business Continuity, a new offering that enables organizations to safeguard their digital operational capability with an open source backup system for their Identity & Access Management infrastructure. This transforms digital sovereignty from a long-term strategic goal into an immediately actionable preparedness measure: strategically sound, economically viable, and operationally available when needed.
Four Stages, Strong Content, Close Collaboration
Across four stages, the Summit offered an extensive program featuring presentations and panel discussions on digital sovereignty, European collaboration, and open source ecosystems, complemented by practical implementation stories. Distinguished speakers from the public sector, business, education, and the IT industry shared their experiences with successful open source projects and sovereign IT strategies.
Program Highlights from Public Administration, Technology, and Education
Throughout the presentations and panel discussions, one message became clear: digital sovereignty is no longer a future aspiration, it is an immediate responsibility. In his opening keynote, Peter Ganten emphasized that Europe must begin implementing digital sovereignty now. Without it, organizations become dangerously dependent on unpredictable governments and large software vendors, risking the loss of economic value, prosperity, and freedom. Only through responsible, self-determined digitalization can these dependencies be reduced and long-term prosperity and freedom secured.
Ernst Mayer (KRZN) demonstrated how the user-friendly open source digital workplace developed by the Municipal Data Processing Center on the basis of the Nubus Identity & Access Management platform can improve both user acceptance and operational efficiency. Schleswig-Holstein’s ambitious open source strategy, including its project to build a state-wide directory service based entirely on open source technologies, also attracted significant interest among attendees.
Looking at the European perspective, Milen Starke (CIO of Thuringia), Dr. Matthias Stürmer (CH Open), Emma Ghariani (Head of the Open Source and Digital Commons Department of the French Government), and Peter Ganten agreed that digital sovereignty can only be achieved through cross-border cooperation and common standards. The requirements for a future Germany Stack were discussed by Dr. Martin Hagen (State Secretary for Finance, Bremen), Leonhard Kugler (ZenDiS & openCode), Jutta Horstmann (OSBA), Dr. Dirk Gernhardt (Open Source Officer, City of Munich), and Felix Kronlage (Sovereign Cloud Stack). Participants broadly agreed that greater clarity is needed. Clear guidance on the use of open source software and technical standards would enable federal states, municipalities, and businesses alike to align procurement and development efforts while improving interoperability.
In the education track, Mario Schmid (Senior School Inspector, Baden-Württemberg) highlighted the Digital Workplace for Teachers (DAP), successfully migrated to openDesk in 2025, as an outstanding example of how open source technologies can serve as the foundation for modern and digitally sovereign educational services. Zehra Öztürk (Acting Head of Department, Hamburg Senate Chancellery) addressed the reuse of IT solutions in public administration, stating: “They should be deliberately used as a strategic tool to foster innovation, use resources efficiently, and sustainably modernize public administration.”
The strategic discussions were complemented by insights into the 2026 roadmap for Univention’s Identity & Access Management products Nubus, UCS, and UCS@school, as well as numerous partner keynotes and customer presentations from school authorities. Together, they demonstrated that open ecosystems are most successful when public administration, enterprises, open source vendors, and system integrators work closely togethe
Exhibition with 40 Partners
The conference program was accompanied by an exhibition featuring 40 software and hardware vendors as well as IT service providers. Well-known technology companies, including Collabora, Nextcloud, Open-Xchange, OpenCloud, Thomas-Krenn, B1, ITIS, Meetling, OpenTalk, and Relution, joined leading system integrators such as Bechtle, CANCOM, B1, Dataport, and the cloud provider IONOS to present their solutions. The exhibition served as a central meeting point for networking, collaboration, and new ideas.
“The Univention Summit 2026 clearly demonstrated the growing interest in digitally sovereign and sustainable IT solutions—and the importance of open dialogue between public administration, business, and education. The outstanding participation and active engagement perfectly reflected our guiding principle: LET’S CONNECT.” – Peter Ganten (CEO Univention)
Additional information and photos are available on the Univention Summit website.
About Univention
Univention, headquartered in Bremen, is a provider of open source solutions for the efficient management of digital identities and the integration of applications. Openness, scalability and ease of use are central features of Univention products and serve to realize digital sovereignty, which ensures that user organizations have control over their own data and identities as well as the ability to independently design information technology.
The product Nubus bundles central Identity & Access Management, a web portal for easy access to applications and the option of integrating applications via standardized interfaces and integration packages.
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an open integration platform that includes Nubus and its own App Center and enables the central management of heterogeneous IT domains. UCS can be operated as a software appliance in your own data center as well as in the cloud.
And the solution UCS@school, which is tailored to the education sector, offers school authorities an optimized platform for the simple provision of services from different providers such as learning management systems, e-mail, cloud and office applications for schools via their own school portals. Users can be imported – also automatically – from national directories and managed centrally.
Univention’s solutions are used by numerous federal states, municipalities and districts, administrations and companies throughout the DACH region.
Further information:
Press contact:
Alice Horstmann
Head of Communication – Univention
presse@univention.de
+49 (0)421 222 32 27
