Frank Karlitschek, the founder and CEO of Nextcloud GmbH, will share his expertise on building sustainable open source businesses, drawing from his journey in establishing Nextcloud as a decentralized and open alternative to major cloud providers. Since founding Nextcloud in 2016, Karlitschek has been a prominent advocate for open source, pioneering software that prioritizes user privacy, control, and data sovereignty. As a long-time contributor to the open source community and former KDE e.V. board member, Karlitschek brings deep insights into the challenges and rewards of creating open, user-first solutions in a world dominated by centralized tech giants.
Having spoken at leading institutions like MIT, CERN, Harvard, and ETH, as well as headlining numerous global tech conferences, Karlitschek’s knowledge spans technical, ethical, and strategic dimensions of open source development. His commitment to open standards and governance—evident in his contributions to the W3C’s ActivityPub standard and his advisory role with the United Nations on open source issues—has earned him multiple awards, including the European SFS Free Software Award and the Acteurs du Libre European Award in 2023. In this talk, Karlitschek will discuss the core principles behind creating a resilient and ethical open source company and offer practical advice for entrepreneurs looking to bring transparency and sustainability to the tech industry.
