EU Digital Sovereignty Happy Hour

PANEL DISCUSSION & NETWORKING - THURSDAY, MAY 21 - 18:30 - 10:00 PM

  • Elena Kirchberg

    Founder of Tonwechsel and former contract negotiator for Google Cloud and Business Finance EMEA

  • Adriaan Andringa

    Adriaan Andringa

    Owner, BxG Strategy advising companies and organizations operating in highly regulated and geopolitically exposed markets.

  • Ranjith Venkatesh

    Owner, Moss & Lichens IT Consulting and provider of Digital Sovereign platform solutions.

Earlier this year, when the US was threatening to take Greenland by the EU began openly speaking about using the ‘Trade Bazooka’, aka the ACI. This could have blocked some of America’s access to EU markets or impose export controls

For major platforms like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, the most immediate hit would be exclusion from public sector contracts. European governments, hospitals, schools, and state bodies are enormous cloud customers — losing access to those tenders would be a major blow, potentially forcing a rapid shift to European alternatives like Deutsche Telekom’s Open Telekom Cloud or France’s OVHcloud.

For smaller businesses, a digital services tax or licence restriction would have made it economically unviable for smaller platforms (ex. Squarespace) to serve European customers at current price points. European small businesses using those tools could have faced higher costs or disrupted service for them and their clients.

The trade war suddenly became a lot less abstract.

This casual, intimate event brings together experts in the field for a short moderated panel on how we as both business owners and consumers need to think about and possibly prepare for EU Digital Sovereignty moving forward.

We’ll continue the discussion along with drinks and finger food after the talk. Seats are limited.