Chrystalleni Loizidou, NGI0 Regional Representative
25 March 2026
submitted for Entrust, NGI0
In 2026, we observe a significant lag, or an absence, of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS) from the national policy agenda of the Republic of Cyprus. This lag has to do with accumulated momentum, sustained lobbying, and an uncritical embrace of proprietary technologies, alongside a dismissal or blindness to the long-term risks of ceding digital sovereignty to global tech corporations.
Institutions that might be expected to play a leading role, universities, NGOs, municipalities, and government ministries, remain passive. Similarly, political parties are largely silent on questions of technology policy and digital rights, not seeing their relevance to their constituents. The result is a policy void. FOSS is not meaningfully integrated into public procurement frameworks nor mentioned in national strategic planning. Within this landscape, the FOSS ecosystem persists in a fragmented and unsupported manner.
My work as Regional Representative for NGI0 has been, on the one hand, about strengthening the local ecosystem by supporting and amplifying voices and efforts within it, holding regular events with the Cyprus FLOSS Association (ellak.org.cy) and facilitating connections between local actors and the broader European FOSS landscape and NGI0. On the grassroots, aside from supporting developers to apply to NGI0, I have co-organised regular Repair Cafès, which offer promising foundations for collaboration and mobilisation as they build on points of alignment between ecological, educational, and technological movements, particularly those grounded in commons-oriented and non-extractive approaches.
On another level, I have worked strategically to increase visibility, create accountability, and raise the level of public discourse around FOSS by publishing articles, organising public events and discussions, engaging and briefing institutions, academics, journalists, policymakers and political parties, about emerging conversations around digital sovereignty, public code, and the centrality of FOSS to the protection of fundamental rights in digital environments.
It is my hope and ambition that, when a meaningful policy window emerges, the local FOSS ecosystem will have matured and be sufficiently equipped, connected, resilient, and ready to intervene so that it can begin to change the tide towards commons-based, publicly accountable digital infrastructures that strengthen sovereignty, care, and democratic life.
allonan 