Interview with Marius Felzmann, Senior Vice President of CEBIT (Deutsche Messe)
CEBIT is Europe’s Leading Digital Event. Knowing the projection offered by open source technologies, CEBIT has found in the LIBRECON event an ally in southern Europe to continue exploring all its possibilities. In order to understand the keys of this agreement, we spoke with Marius Felzmann, vice president of CEBIT.
1. Why does CEBIT decide to join the LIBRECON event?
CEBIT has always been a very accurate barometer and very advanced in the detection and presentation of technological advances that are strategic for the promotion of the economy. During the consecutive editions of CEBIT, already a long-lived event, we have seen how open source went from being in the beginning a small utopia full of potential to consolidate or as a technological revelation that provides a high competitive value and for the innovation of companies.
Open technologies have taken giant steps, really revolutionary, in a short time, so much so that we believe that they deserved their own dedicated space, where their latest developments and all their potential could be exhibited. CEBIT sought for this alliance a consolidated event on the subject, with a journey and its own history. And that’s why we trust in LIBRECON, which has become the only event in Europe besides Hannover that has CEBIT’s affiliation.
2. There is less and less time for the big date to arrive. What do you think about this edition of LIBRECON?
I am sure that this eighth edition of LIBRECON will be a great opportunity both to know the state of the art of open technologies and to generate business in that field. It has configured its spaces for the exchange of knowledge to flow, to disseminate the latest technology avant-garde and to produce business meetings aimed at pooling companies that demand ICT solutions and developers capable of addressing their challenges. In particular, I find your practical approach very interesting. In this sense, LIBRECON powered by CEBIT will be not only a framework, but also a shuttle for open source technologies to continue advancing. LIBRECON powered by CEBIT is the ideal place to know the situation of the sector, as a living entity and in constant evolution.
3. What are the benefits of open source to key sectors of the economy such as public administration, industry and finance?
In the technological world, hand in hand with open source, there have been great advances that have led to a revolution in the professional field in some sectors.
For example, in public administration, this model has contributed to creating more employment and helping people outside the institution to collaborate in the improvement of projects. They also represent an opportunity to reduce costs and dependencies of suppliers and to reverse the investment of public money in citizenship. In the financial sector, thanks to open source and applying a blockchain technology system many users can make real estate or monetary transactions much faster. Open source has also brought very positive changes for the industry, making operations faster and providing the machines with simpler and more productive control. They say that the digitalization of the industry represents the greatest advance and the deepest transformation recorded in the production processes since the Industrial Revolution. Much of that statement, we owe it to open technologies.