Government Summit

Government and public sector organisations face shared digital challenges, from public facing websites to intranets, case management, complaints, and reporting systems. Initiatives like LocalGov Drupal demonstrate the value of collaboration, but Drupal can do more across the sector.

Local, national and European level government organisations have common requirements and an increasing need for digital sovereignty and open source technologies to power publishing and service provision, a perfect opportunity for Drupal based solutions.

This dedicated Government Summit creates a focused space to explore these common needs, share existing solutions, and connect organisations working on similar digital transformation challenges across local, national and international government organisations.

Summit Speakers
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Sachiko Muto Photo.png
Sachiko Muto
Chair, OpenForum Europe

Sachiko Muto is the Chair of OpenForum Europe and a senior researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. She originally joined OFE in 2007 and served for several years as Director with responsibility for government relations and then as CEO. Sachiko has degrees in Political Science from the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics; she received her doctorate in standardisation policy from TU Delft.
 

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Teun van der Vorm
Teun van der Vorm
General Director, DICTU

Teun van der Vorm is the General Director (Algemeen Directeur) of the Dienst ICT Uitvoering (DICTU), which is the IT service provider for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and other government organizations. He officially assumed this role on September 1, 2025

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Esmeralda Tijhoff
Esmeralda Tijhoff
Product Owner, DICTU

Esmeralda Tijhoff is Product Owner of GovNL CMS, the Standard Drupal Website for governments, and the Standard Drupal Intranet for governments at DICTU, the IT provider of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. As Open Source Officer for Web & App Services, she helps drive the adoption of open source within the Dutch government and fosters collaboration between public sector organizations. Beyond her work at DICTU, Esmeralda is one of the initiators of the Network of European Drupal Associations (NEDA), connecting Drupal communities across Europe to strengthen collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the use of Drupal in the public sector. She is a passionate advocate for open source, digital government, and building sustainable solutions through collaboration.

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Gina Plat
Gina Plat
Open Source Program Office BZK

Gina is a member of the Dutch government OSPO, board member of F-Droid, founding board member of the Fosstodon foundation, and a prominent advocate for the open source community. Her work focuses on strengthening national and European collaboration around open source alternatives through policy, projects and people.
 

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Mike Gifford
Mike Gifford
Civic Actions

Mike Gifford is CivicActions’ Open Standards & Practices Lead and a pioneering thought leader in open government, digital accessibility, and sustainability. A W3C Invited Expert and recognized authority on authoring tool accessibility, Mike has consulted for governments across North America and Europe.

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Frank Karlitschek
Frank Karlitschek
NextCloud
Frank Karlitschek is a long time open source contributor and former board member of the KDE e.V. He founded ownCloud in 2010 and the successor Nextcloud in 2016 to create a fully open source and decentralized alternative to big centralized cloud companies. Frank was an invited expert at the W3C to help to create the ActivityPub standard. Frank has spoken at MIT, CERN, Harvard and ETH and keynoted LinuxCon, Latinoware, FOSSASIA, Campus Party and many other conferences. Frank is the founder and CEO of Nextcloud GmbH. He is also a fellow of Open Forum Europe and an advisor to the United Nations regarding Open Source. Frank won the European SFS Free Software Award 2023 and the Acteurs du Libre European Award 2023. 
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Will Callaghan
Will Callaghan
LocalGov Drupal
Will is a product, delivery and programme manager working in UK central and local government with a passion for encouraging public sector organisations to team up and build or buy software based on common needs. Co-founder of LocalGov Drupal, a web publishing system used by 70+ councils across the UK and Ireland and Europe.
 
 


 

Phil Rumens
Principal Technologist, GDS Local
Phil Rumens is Principal Technologist at GDS Local, part of the UK's Government Digital Service, where he's leading the co-creation of a shared vision and technology stack for local government. He brings over two decades of hands-on experience in local government digital delivery and is a former Chair of LocalGov Digital. Phil has given evidence to Parliament's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee and writes on scaling open source adoption across the public sector.
Justine Pocock
Chicken
Justine Pocock is co-founder and Creative Director of Chicken, a UK-based agency specialising in open source digital services for local government. With nearly twenty years in design and front-end development, she works to build accessible, sustainable websites. A long-standing member of the Drupal community, Justine is an active contributor to Drupal and LocalGov Drupal, where Chicken releases its client work back as open source modules rather than keeping it closed. She is a persistent advocate for accessibility, sustainable design, and the value open source delivers to the public sector.

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