The Linux Foundation’s Open Source Summit North America 2025 is gearing up to offer attendees an even richer program by introducing two new dedicated tracks: Safety-Critical AI and OpenGovCon. Building on the event’s legacy of fostering collaboration among developers, operators, and community leaders, these tracks address the growing need to integrate rigorous safety standards into AI systems and to extend open-source principles into government and public-sector projects. Safety-Critical AI will convene experts from automotive, aerospace, medical devices, and industrial automation to share best practices, certification approaches, and open tools for building verifiable, auditable AI components. OpenGovCon will unite public servants, civic technologists, and privacy advocates to explore how open-source technology can enhance transparency, improve service delivery, and drive innovation in government. By expanding its agenda to cover these emergent domains, Open Source Summit NA 2025 reaffirms its role as the premier forum for advancing open collaboration on the most pressing technical and societal challenges of our time.

The Rise of Safety-Critical AI and the Role of Open Source

Artificial intelligence is permeating domains where human lives and public safety are at stake: self-driving cars, surgical robotics, industrial control systems, and more. Yet most AI frameworks and tooling were designed for fast-paced model experimentation, not the rigorous verification and traceability demanded by safety regulators. The newly launched Safety-Critical AI track recognizes this gap. Sessions will cover topics such as integrating formal methods into neural-network pipelines, leveraging open-source real-time operating systems for predictable AI inference, and adopting compliance frameworks like ISO 26262 (automotive), DO-178C (avionics), and IEC 61508 (industrial). Panelists include maintainers of projects like the Open Source Safety Certification Toolkit (OSCAT) and contributors to open-source toolchains for explainability and audit logging. By showcasing case studies—from a community-driven medical-device AI platform that passed FDA pre-submission review to an open-source flight-control stack used in experimental aircraft—attendees will gain actionable insights into making AI trustworthy, transparent, and certifiable.

Open Government Meets Open Source: The OpenGovCon Track

Governments around the world are under pressure to modernize legacy IT systems, respond faster to citizen needs, and safeguard data privacy—all while operating under tight budgets and regulatory constraints. OpenGovCon brings together innovators who believe that open-source development models can address these challenges head-on. Sessions will explore successful deployments of open-source platforms in public-sector contexts: municipal procurement systems built on federated blockchain frameworks; participatory budgeting tools leveraging open APIs and interactive data visualizations; and privacy-preserving contact-tracing apps whose source code was published for community audit. Government speakers will share how they navigated procurement policies to adopt open-source software, overcame interoperability hurdles between departments, and cultivated local developer communities. Workshops will offer hands-on guidance for launching civic-tech sprints and establishing open-data portals that comply with national information-access directives. By demystifying the journey from code to policy implementation, the OpenGovCon track aims to empower both technologists and public-sector leaders to co-create digital services that are transparent, resilient, and responsive to citizen needs.

Bridging the Tracks: Intersection of Safety and Public Good

Although Safety-Critical AI and OpenGovCon address distinct domains, their intersection points are profound. Consider the deployment of AI-driven traffic-signal control systems in smart-city initiatives: these require public-sector procurement of AI components that must be failsafe and transparent. Or think of emergency-response chatbots hosted by municipal 911 centers: developers need to apply safety-critical design patterns even as they publish source code for community scrutiny. The Summit will feature joint sessions where participants from both tracks discuss cross-cutting themes like open-source risk management, transparent AI governance frameworks, and multi-stakeholder certification models. By fostering dialogue between regulatory experts, government IT leaders, and open-source communities, Open Source Summit NA 2025 will help seed best practices that ensure AI systems respect both technical safety mandates and public accountability standards.

Workshops and Hands-On Labs

Practical, skill-building workshops are a hallmark of the Summit, and this year’s additions are designed to equip attendees with ready-to-use tools. The Safety-Critical AI track includes labs on using the open-source “CertifyAI” framework to generate machine-readable safety cases, as well as tutorials on integrating Rust-based microcontrollers into AI inference pipelines for deterministic execution. OpenGovCon workshops will cover deploying “Open311” civic-request portals on Kubernetes clusters, implementing privacy-by-design in open-source mobile apps, and building automated data-quality validators for public datasets. Each session combines instructor-led demonstrations with guided exercises, ensuring participants leave with working prototypes and a deeper understanding of how to apply open-source solutions in their own projects.

Keynotes and Thought Leadership

The Summit’s keynote lineup will reflect the strategic importance of these new tracks. A prominent government chief technology officer will outline a national open-source policy roadmap, highlighting successes and lessons learned. A leading safety engineer from the aerospace sector will share insights on certifying AI components for crewed spacecraft, underscoring the critical role of community-driven tooling. Additionally, a panel of ethicists, privacy scholars, and AI researchers will debate the ethical imperatives of transparency and accountability in both civilian and public-sector AI deployments. These thought-leadership sessions aim to inspire attendees to broaden their perspective on the societal impacts of open collaboration, transcending code to address governance, ethics, and sustainability.

Networking and Community Building

In addition to technical sessions, the Summit will host special networking events tailored to these tracks. The “Safety-Critical AI Community Hour” brings together practitioners seeking collaborators for open-source certification projects, while the “OpenGovCon Civic-Tech Mixer” connects government delegates with open-source developers and policy advocates. Dedicated “Birds of a Feather” meetups will allow smaller interest groups—such as open-source medical-device AI users or municipal open-data stewards—to share experiences and forge partnerships. By facilitating these community-building activities, the Summit ensures that the momentum generated in presentations translates into sustained collaboration long after the event concludes.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Open Collaboration

The addition of Safety-Critical AI and OpenGovCon to Open Source Summit NA 2025 reflects the open-source community’s evolving ambitions: to tackle complex, high-stakes challenges that span technology, regulation, and public policy. As AI systems assume ever-greater roles in critical infrastructure and governments embrace digital transformation, the need for transparent, auditable, and collaborative development models has never been more urgent. Open Source Summit NA 2025 offers a unique convergence of expertise—bringing together regulators, public servants, developers, and researchers in a single forum. By equipping participants with the knowledge, tools, and networks they need to build safe, trustworthy, and inclusive systems, the Summit will help chart a course toward an open-source future where technological innovation serves the public good in the broadest sense.