Reclaiming EdTech Design: From Open Source to Digital Autonomy in Education

Since Donald Trump entered the White House for a second time, a broader awareness has emerged: education needs to become less dependent on American technology products. But if we want to reduce our reliance on Big Tech, what are the alternatives? Increasingly, open source is mentioned as a possible pathway. But what exactly do we mean by that? What does education built on open-source technology look like in practice? And what contribution could open source make to strengthening digital autonomy in education?

Open source

Open source refers to software whose source code is openly accessible. This means the software can be examined, modified, and further developed by others. For education, this can offer important advantages that go beyond simply reducing dependency on Big Tech platforms. Open source can also give schools greater control over their digital environment and create space for applications that better align with pedagogical, didactic, and public values. Open source therefore concerns more than technology alone. It raises questions about ownership, collaboration, and the ways digital infrastructures in education are designed and governed. In essence, this is about digital autonomy.

What?

On Thursday, 25 June 2026, Utrecht University, Kennisnet and SIVON will host a symposium on open source as a possible pathway towards digital autonomy in primary and secondary education. The symposium brings together researchers, schools, policymakers, and sector organisations to exchange experiences, insights, and questions related to open source.

The day begins with several short and thought-provoking contributions from scholars who will sharpen the debate about open source in education. These reflections will highlight both the promises and the tensions and limitations of open source. Together they will set the stage for the discussions that unfold throughout the day.

Participants will then join two parallel workshop sessions exploring concrete initiatives from the Netherlands and across Europe. Practical experiences take centre stage: from schools experimenting with open-source software to collaborations in which school boards, municipalities, or sector organisations jointly develop public digital infrastructures for education. The workshops offer space to exchange experiences, learn from existing initiatives, and collectively reflect on both the opportunities and the practical challenges of open source in education.

The afternoon begins with a panel discussion in which key insights from the workshops are brought together. We conclude the day with a provocative keynote by a speaker from the education sector, who will reflect on the role of open source in education today while also offering a vision for the future. How can open source contribute to an educational landscape in which schools have greater control over their digital environment? And what steps are needed to move closer to that future?

Why?

In the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, a growing number of schools have begun experimenting with open source as the foundation of their digital environments. These initiatives take many different forms.

Some emerge from the bottom up: teachers, schools, parents, or local communities developing or implementing open-source solutions to reduce dependency on Big Tech platforms. In other cases, schools make a deliberate strategic choice for open source to gain greater control over their digital environment, their data, and the pedagogical possibilities of technology.

We also see collaborations on a larger scale, where school boards, municipalities, or sector organisations jointly develop public digital systems that can be used by multiple schools.

Alongside these initiatives, new forms of sector-level support are emerging. An important Dutch example is the Open Source Program Office (OSPO) of SIVON, a programme that helps schools make informed decisions about their digital infrastructure. The OSPO collects and shares knowledge about digital dependency and open-source alternatives, facilitates knowledge exchange between schools, initiates pilots based on needs identified in the field, and collaborates with suppliers and other organisations to develop better and more open digital solutions for education.

Together, these initiatives demonstrate that schools do not have to remain merely users of technology. Increasingly, they are also becoming active participants in the design and development of digital systems.

At the same time, recent European research shows that open source in itself does not automatically guarantee more autonomous or democratic digital education. Open-source projects can still reproduce dominant platform logics, for instance when efficiency, standardisation, or technocratic visions of learning continue to dominate.

The transformative potential of open source therefore lies not only in the technology itself, but also in how collaboration, decision-making, and design processes are organised, particularly through practices of co-design and participation.

This symposium creates space to collectively reflect on questions such as:

•    How can open source be more closely connected to pedagogical and didactic values?
•    What is needed to embed these values sustainably in open-source educational technologies?
•    What forms of governance and co-design are required?
•    Who has a voice in these processes—teachers, students, designers, administrators—and who does not (yet)?

Objectives

This symposium offers a shared space to critically explore and deepen existing open-source practices and approaches. By connecting insights from research with practical experiences from schools and sector organisations, we aim to better understand how open-source technologies can contribute to digital autonomy in education.

In addition, the symposium aims to strengthen connections between researchers, schools, sector organisations, and European partners working on open digital infrastructures for education. By fostering these exchanges, we hope to stimulate new forms of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and collective innovation around open source and digital autonomy in education.

Programme

To follow.