Blog on BeLibre - Belgian Think Tank on Digital Autonomy

Digisprong is looking for partners for an open source procurement in Flemish education

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Kenniscentrum Digisprong published a public procurement in early April 2026 that is worth reading carefully. Not because public procurements are generally compelling reading, but because this one explicitly asks for open source expertise, didactic depth and knowledge of digital sovereignty. Budget: up to 700,000 euros. Deadline for tenders: 1 June 2026. Information session: 5 May 2026.

For anyone who wants to know the background of Digisprong: read our earlier article first. The short version: the Flemish government has spent five years quietly building an open source learning infrastructure for its two million people in education, and is now taking that to the next level by making open source the content theme of its professional development as well.

A Belgian tool is quietly running medical imaging worldwide

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Somewhere in a place you have never heard of - in a hospital in rural Senegal, a clinic in Peru or a radiology department in the heart of Brussels - a doctor is looking at a medical scan. There is a reasonable chance that scan is being served by software built in Liège.

Orthanc is a free, open-source DICOM server for medical imaging. It was initiated in 2011 by Sébastien Jodogne at the University Hospital of Liège, with its first public release on July 19, 2012. Since then it has become one of the most widely deployed medical imaging tools in the world, running in hospitals, research institutions, and clinics across dozens of countries. The Orthanc Team, a Belgian consultancy run by Alain Mazy and Benoît Crickboom, handles community support, plugin development, and deployment for hospitals and software companies worldwide. Sébastien Jodogne continues development from his research lab at UCLouvain. They deliberately keep it small: focused on development and documentation, without the overhead of enterprise support contracts and shareholder obligations.

Five years of Digisprong: how the Flemish government quietly built an open digital learning infrastructure and is now shifting into a higher gear

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For the past five years, the Flemish government has been quietly building an open digital learning infrastructure for its two million people in education: on open source, on European servers, with public money. This article tells the story of how it grew, why it matters, and what the new Digisprong procurement adds to it.

It was the summer of 2014. In schools across Flanders, teachers sat behind their computers, armed with export buttons and download files, trying to salvage what they could. EloV, the electronic learning environment that the VVKSO had been offering to more than 140 Catholic secondary schools since 2005, was taken offline on 1 September for good. The Blackboard licence had become too expensive. The collaboration with KU Leuven was over. That was that.

What Academia Now Tells Governments About Digital Dependency

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Things are starting to shift in the field of digital dependency. The conversation in the public sector has moved from civil society warnings to parliamentary reports, from IT conferences to cabinet agendas. Academia was tracking this before it became a policy priority: Paul van Vulpen began researching digital sovereignty and decentralised IT governance when neither was high on anyone’s agenda. He defended his dissertation Debating Digital Dominance: Decentralized Technology Governance For Strategic Autonomy at Utrecht University in January 2026.

The end of MS Office in sight? Germany chooses ODF, the Netherlands lacks courage.

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0100

This guest contribution was republished from LinkedIn with permission from the author.

This month, the German federal government announced a notable decision through the so-called Deutschland-Stack: across all levels of government, from federal ministries down to municipalities, only two document formats are now permitted. Open Document Format (ODF) and PDF/UA. The popular Microsoft formats such as .docx (MS Word), .xlsx (MS Excel) and .pptx (MS PowerPoint) fall outside this framework.

One year of BeLibre: why digital freedom concerns us all

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0100

Imagine waking up one morning to find that the local council no longer knows who is entitled to social support. That the hospital can no longer access patient records. That the police have lost their communication systems. Not because of an attack, but simply because one American company somewhere far away has a technical outage, raises its prices, or suddenly refuses access.

Sounds far-fetched? Less than you might think. But this article is not about fear. It is about what becomes possible when you make conscious choices.

The pigeon that flew back: how Belgium quietly chose open source messaging

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Imagine: the year is 1914. Somewhere on the Western Front, a small pigeon is released with a message tied to its leg. It doesn’t know why. It doesn’t know for whom. It simply flies — reliable, unseen, tireless — and delivers the message.

For centuries, the pigeon was the gold standard of secure communication. No wires to tap. No central server to hack. Decentralised by nature. And surprisingly hard to intercept.

Press release - March 17, 2026

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:30:14 +0100

US Congress demands messages from European officials via Microsoft and Google

What the Belgian privacy and tech community has been warning about for years is now confirmed: those who communicate via American cloud services communicate under American oversight.

Brussels, March 17, 2026

On March 16, 2026, the US House of Representatives formally reminded ten major technology companies (Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Microsoft, OpenAI, Reddit, Rumble, TikTok, and xAI) of their obligation to hand over all communications with European institutions to the Judiciary Committee. The letters, signed by Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, specifically target messages exchanged by European officials in the context of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? When Geopolitics Hits Your Cloud, HR and Bank Account

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 21:00:00 +0100

The Reality of Digital Dependency

DNS records from the previous article paint a clear picture: over 70% of Belgian public institutions (e.g. hospitals, police, schools, defence, municipalities) rely on Microsoft’s cloud for daily operations. Systems run smoothly. Salaries arrive, patients receive care, lessons continue. The instinct to maintain what works makes sense.

The challenge comes from concentration: a single foreign platform supporting critical workflows, subject to distant laws and remote management. By late 2025, US providers held over 70% of Europe’s cloud market, local alternatives below 15%. Belgium’s situation highlights what happens when public services align on one stack. Recent events show these dependencies carry real consequences, but they also illuminate substantial opportunities ahead.

Beyond the Marketing: Measuring Microsoft’s Cloud Sovereignty in Europe

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0100

Digital sovereignty in Europe will not be decided in press releases, but in procurement choices and legal detail.

BeLibre has applied the European Commission’s Cloud Sovereignty Framework to Microsoft’s cloud stack and produced a full SEAL‑based assessment across all eight sovereignty objectives. The focus on Microsoft is deliberate: on multiple occasions, people at Microsoft were asked, but did not answer how its services perform against this framework, while an estimated 90–95% of Belgian government services currently depend on Microsoft infrastructure.

Banks and the Digital Divide: Let's Build Solutions Together for Everyone

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0100

The testimony from Nathalie on the RTL website has touched us in the BeLibre community. In many places, we heard and read indignation about the way these persons got handled. This story is about ING, but we notice a trend toward further digitalization and dehumanizing of consumer banking at multiple banks.

The move toward digital banking offers opportunities for convenience and innovation. The past decades have already proven this. Banking with the card reader has become commonplace, and for many, it has become unthinkable that you would still need to queue at the counter for a simple transfer. Yet thirty years ago there was also much protest when this concept was introduced. Are we being too conservative again, clinging too tightly to our established certainties?

If FIFA can do it, so can we

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 21:00:00 +0100

We’re here live from the cafeteria, for the announcement of the BeLibre world soccer champion!

Last week, the international soccer federation showed us once again how awards work these days. After the big boss felt slighted, FIFA pulled a few feathers out of its ass and delivered them with a deep bow. They created the brand new “FIFA Peace Prize,” specially awarded during the 2026 World Cup draw.

Belgium Can’t Afford Microsoft to Go Down: A Wake-Up Call on Digital Sovereignty

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 17:20:14 +0100

So we’re using Microsoft at the Belgian government? So what, that’s not a bad thing, is it? I mean, it does a great job and everybody uses it. Right? After all, it’s the safe option. “Nobody ever got fired for choosing ~~IBM~~ Microsoft.

“Hey US, I thought we were friends?” This question isn’t rhetorical anymore. As tariff threats escalate, wars redraw geopolitical alliances, and digital infrastructure becomes the backbone of every critical service, Europe faces an uncomfortable truth: we’ve outsourced control of our digital future to a handful of American corporations.

BeLibre Sovereignty Map

Mon, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Interactive map where you can discover digital sovereignty in municipalities, schools, emergency services or other critical infrastructure in our country and beyond.