Group
On Tuesday, February 10, 2026, the IHK Berlin and the Berlin University of Applied Sciences invite you to the „DIGITAL+ Conference: IT Impulses for Berlin Companies“. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the IHK Berlin conference center, the focus will be on practical digitalization, concrete tools and strategic orientation for SMEs.
The Open Source Day Berlin, which we initiated, will take place tomorrow as a separate open source track as part of the "DIGITAL+ Conference". We are very much looking forward to the exchange on digital sovereignty in administration and companies.
Own track: Open source as the key to digital sovereignty
A special focus of the conference is on Open Source and the question of how digital sovereignty for business and administration can be strengthened in concrete terms. Particularly against the backdrop of geopolitical dependencies and growing regulatory requirements, it is clear that open technologies are not idealism, but a strategic factor.
This makes the clear signal from Berlin all the more important: with the recently published „Open source strategy for the state of Berlin“, the country is taking a clear stance.
Peer Heinlein, CEO of the Heinlein Group and member of the IHK Berlin General Assembly, had already published the first Berlin Open Source Day at the IHK and helped organize it. He also played a key role in organizing tomorrow's open source track at the DIGITAL+ conference and will open it.
In the subsequent panel „Strengthening digital sovereignty - Berlin's new open source strategy“:
- Martina Klement, State Secretary and CDO Berlin
- Peer Heinlein, CEO Heinlein Group
- Miriam Seyffarth, Open Source Business Alliance
Concrete solutions instead of buzzwords
In addition to strategic issues, the DIGITAL+ conference will focus on specific open source solutions for corporate use. In the thematic block „Open Source Solutions for Companies“, moderated by Erik Rodner, Professor at HTW Berlin, the following practical examples will be presented:
- Open Source for SMEs (Frachtwerk GmbH)
- LibreOffice (The Document Foundation)
- FOSS project management with OpenProject
- Local OSS solutions for GenAI (HTW Berlin)
- Proxmox vs. OpenStack (Menzel IT GmbH)
- Sovereign cloud solutions (OpenCloud GmbH / Heinlein Group)
You can find the complete program -> online.
Heinlein Group & OpenCloud: Responsibility for digital self-determination
The Berlin Heinlein Group is together with OpenCloud represented at the conference. Both have stood for Digital self-determination, transparency and security through open source - not as a theoretical concept, but as lived practice in productive corporate and administrative environments.
The fact that this event follows on from previous open source formats at the IHK Berlin and is now much more broadly based shows that digital sovereignty has arrived in Berlin's SME sector: Digital sovereignty has arrived in Berlin's SME sector.
The most important key data at a glance
- When: Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 09:00-17:00 (admission from 08:30)
- Where: IHK Berlin, Fasanenstraße 85, 10623 Berlin
- Participation: free of charge
- Registration: -> via the IHK Berlin
- Target group: Berlin-based companies, especially SMEs, IT managers and management teams
Tomorrow is the day. We are looking forward to the exchange, to new impulses - and to many discussions about how open source and digital sovereignty can be implemented in concrete terms.
