United Nations Open Source Week 2025
Last week, I had the privilege of attending and actively contributing to the UN Open Source Week 2025 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. As someone who has spent the last several years working across continents to champion open source, scale AI infrastructure, and advise on global technology policies, this experience felt like a natural culmination of everything I have been working on.
The discussions were about what it takes to maintain open digital infrastructure, build responsible AI systems, and support communities doing the hard work on the ground. It didn’t matter whether you were from a major tech company, a government office, or an open source project, everyone was there because they care about building technology that serves people, the businesses and the public infrastructure.
✨ Open Source Public-Private Sector Evolution
Since its launch in 2023, the UN Open Source Week has grown into a hub for open collaboration across borders. This year’s edition expanded its scope significantly featuring hands-on hackathons, strategy sessions, and deep-dives into topics ranging from ethical AI to digital public infrastructure (DPI).
We saw active participation from open source maintainers in Nairobi, civic technologists in Berlin, and policymakers from across the Global South. There was a noticeable shift in tone, from experimental enthusiasm to a clear intent to institutionalize open source practices, sustainable AI development and principles into how we build public systems.
In one of the sessions, we explored how open source solutions often fall into the “messy middle”, a space where ideas and pilots are promising, but long-term sustainability, funding, and adoption fall short. We talked about use cases beyond emergencies, like education, mental health, privacy, and delivery of government services. These are areas where digital public goods can make lasting, meaningful impact, if given the right support and infrastructure. The session also surfaced challenges that are still very real - infrastructure barriers, customization costs, and building trust in digital tools. The “free as in free puppies” analogy came up again, highlighting that the cost of open source isn’t always financial, but operational and cultural. Maintaining software, onboarding governments, and earning trust in sensitive environments requires long-term commitment, not just code.
👩🏽💻 “Ahead of the Storm” Hackathon
One of the highlights for me was judging the “Ahead of the Storm” Hackathon, co-hosted by UNICEF and the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology. Over the course of two days, more than 81 global participants collaborated in-person, forming a total of 21 teams to address urgent challenges at the intersection of climate resilience and child-focused emergency response.
On Day 1, the hackathon was co-located with Edit-a-thon (in partnership with Wikimedia Foundation) and Maintain-a-thon (in partnership with OpenSSF and Sovereign Tech Agency). The hackathon began in the ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) chamber, where the SDGs were conceived.
The hackathon centered around three complex, open-ended challenges that aimed to strengthen UNICEF’s GeoSight-OS platform and geospatial intelligence capabilities:
The challenges were complex and open-ended—ranging from building proactive early warning systems to enhancing situational awareness through multi-hazard data fusion. Many teams focused on strengthening UNICEF’s GeoSight-OS platform, and the quality of submissions was impressive. Some were close to deployment-ready; others sparked ideas that could shape long-term innovation in humanitarian response. Above all, the event showcased what happens when open source meets mission-driven innovation and it was an honor to witness the level of commitment, depth, and thoughtfulness each team brought to the table.
🏛️ OSPOs for Good: From Movement to Institutions
A recurring focus throughout UN Open Source Week was the role of Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) in formalizing open source operations across sectors. We heard from initiatives in India and Trinidad & Tobago that are developing OSPOs to bring more structure to their digital public efforts. We also heard from France and institutions like Carnegie Mellon University , GitHub , Amazon , GitLab , Mozilla foundation, Japan - The Government of Japan who are using OSPOs to align open source work with broader institutional missions. While some organizations manage these efforts under broader R&D or engineering operations, others have established dedicated OSPOs to coordinate strategy, governance, and adoption. The emphasis was on building internal processes that can support long-term project sustainability and cross-sector collaboration. My contributions centered around how developer communities and infrastructure projects can be designed to scale responsibly, particularly in the AI and data space.
And the biggest takeaway? These programs must be built in collaboration with the local ecosystem, working alongside existing tech communities, academic institutions, and civil society organizations.
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🤖 AI, DPI, and the Future of Ethical Systems
The sessions on AI transparency, open data interoperability and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) were especially timely. We discussed the possibilities and the responsibilities that come with scaling AI systems. How do we build explainable models? How do we prevent marginalized communities from being excluded from digital ID systems? How do we ensure that open data doesn’t become another vector for harm? It became clear that open source is no longer just the foundation of our tech stack—it’s the foundation of our trust stack. Hearing from experts like Yann LeCun, Sabrina Farmer, Guilherme Canela, and others, I felt proud to be part of an ecosystem that’s not afraid to confront the hard questions.
In a keynote session, UN leadership also candidly shared the challenges they face with vendor lock-in and proprietary systems. Their call to action was "we must proactively manage licensing, push for interoperability, and ensure that our tools can talk across institutional and national boundaries".
🌍 DPI Day: Building for the Global Majority
The final day focused on DPI as a public good. Breakouts touched on inclusion in digital payments, safeguards for smaller states, and the importance of equitable data access. These conversations mirrored much of my own recent work in promoting privacy-enhancing technologies and responsible cross-border data collaboration.
Event included an open source announcement, FLOSS-PSO Network—a new platform to help public sector OSPOs share best practices, build connections, and support each other through shared learning.
Final Reflections: Why This Week Matters
Tech conferences often lean heavily into hype or high-level policy talk. But what stood out at UN Open Source Week was the willingness to face the messy middle, the structural gaps, and the work still left to be done. There were plenty of panels on AI, open data, and digital governance and sessions on embedding transparency into product workflows. Conversations didn’t end at vision statements—they explored funding models, government coordination, and platform interoperability.
As someone who works with developers building data pipelines and AI models every day, I often find these conversations too removed from what’s happening on the ground. But being at these international public forums, I feel grounded. We are faced with real challenges and real conversations about interoperability, reproducibility, and open ecosystems, showing up more honestly, and creating space for long-overdue conversations.
For me personally, this week deepened my resolve to:
I left the week with amazing connections and memories with old friends and network. If you’re in this space, I hope we get to build something together soon.
Bravo! that's exciting! I would love to hear your take on what policy makers are saying about open sourcing of LLMs