Host Country Open Stage

Summary

This discussion focused on digital governance, public goods, and information literacy as key components of building sustainable digital ecosystems for society. Sørla Frøland from Norway’s Olympic and Paralympic Committee shared how they unified nearly 10,000 autonomous sports clubs through standardized data structures and reusable digital building blocks. Their organization, representing 30% of Norway’s population, created a centralized portal called MySports that serves as an innovation lab for co-creation across all sectors of society. The initiative began during the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics when Norway became the first country connected to the internet’s predecessor, sparking digital collaboration across their sports movement.

The discussion then highlighted Ungdoten (ung.no), a cross-ministerial collaboration serving Norway’s 500,000 youth aged 13-20 with over 21 million annual visits. This platform provides anonymous question-and-answer services, verified information, and support tools, demonstrating how public sectors can work together to create trustworthy digital resources. Solve Kuros Karlsson from Faktisk.no addressed the challenge of misinformation in the digital age, explaining how their fact-checking organization helps citizens navigate information overload through media literacy and verification tools. He emphasized that the problem isn’t accessing information but finding verified, trustworthy sources.

Finally, Liv Marte Nordhaug from the Digital Public Goods Alliance and Thor Einar Skog from VIPS illustrated how open-source solutions can advance sustainable development goals while maintaining sovereignty and control. VIPS, a Norwegian agricultural system that reduces pesticide use, exemplifies how digital public goods can be adapted globally while fostering local innovation and capacity building. The discussion demonstrated how collaborative, open approaches to digital governance can create sustainable ecosystems that serve public interests while empowering communities worldwide.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Digital governance and ecosystem building for large-scale organizations**: Sørla Frøland discussed how Norway’s Olympic and Paralympic Committee created a unified digital infrastructure to serve 1.86 million members across 9,000 autonomous clubs, addressing fragmentation of data and services through standardized building blocks and a centralized portal called MySports.

– **Youth-focused digital services and cross-sector collaboration**: The presentation of Diggy Young and ung.no demonstrated how seven Norwegian ministries collaborate to provide verified, trustworthy information and services for 500,000 young people aged 13-20, emphasizing the importance of accessible resources in an information-overloaded society.

– **Combating misinformation and promoting media literacy**: Solve Kuros Karlsson from Faktisk.no addressed the challenge of navigating information overload and distinguishing verified information from false content, particularly on social media platforms like TikTok, while promoting critical thinking tools and international cooperation among fact-checking organizations.

– **Digital Public Goods as sustainable development tools**: Liv Marte Nordhaug explained the Digital Public Goods Alliance’s mission to advance UN Sustainable Development Goals through open-source solutions, emphasizing benefits like sovereignty, customization, cost-effectiveness, and local ecosystem development.

– **Open-source agricultural technology for global impact**: Thor Einar Skog presented VIPS, a Norwegian-developed open-source system that reduces pesticide use by predicting agricultural pest outbreaks, demonstrating how digital public goods can be adapted across different countries and contexts, from Norway to Mali and Malawi.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to showcase various Norwegian initiatives that demonstrate how digital governance, open-source solutions, and collaborative approaches can address societal challenges while promoting sustainability, trust, and accessibility in digital services across different sectors and scales.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently positive and collaborative tone throughout. Speakers demonstrated pride in their achievements while emphasizing cooperation, innovation, and social responsibility. The tone was informative and solution-oriented, with each presenter building upon themes of digital collaboration, public service, and sustainable development without any notable shifts in mood or approach.

Speakers

– **Sorla Froland**: Head of innovation at the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (Norway’s largest voluntary-based organization)

– **Speaker**: Representative from Diggy Young/ung.no (youth information and services platform in Norway)

– **Speaker 2**: Representative from Diggy Young/ung.no (youth information and services platform in Norway)

– **Solve Kuraas Karlsen**: Representative from Faktisk.no (Norwegian fact-checking organization established in 2017)

– **Liv Marte Nordhaug**: Leader of the Secretariat of the Digital Public Goods Alliance

– **Tor Einar Skog**: Representative from Nibio (Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research), representing VIPS

**Additional speakers:**

None identified beyond those in the speakers names list.

# Event Summary: Presentations on Digital Solutions and Public Services in Norway

## Overview

This event featured presentations from five Norwegian organizations showcasing different approaches to digital solutions and public services. The speakers presented their work on sports organization coordination, youth services, fact-checking, digital public goods, and agricultural technology.

## Presentations

### Sørla Frøland – Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee

Frøland presented the digital transformation challenges facing Norway’s sports sector. Her organization represents 1.86 million members across nearly 10,000 autonomous, volunteer-led sports clubs, encompassing 30% of Norway’s population. She posed the central challenge: “But how do you unify an organisation of nearly 10,000 autonomous, volunteer-led clubs? And what are the challenges along the way?”

The organization addressed fragmentation of data and services by creating sustainable ecosystems of reusable building blocks and standardized data structures. They developed a centralized portal called MySports that serves as both a service delivery platform and innovation laboratory.

Frøland traced the origins of this digital unification to the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, noting: “In many ways we saw the spark of this unification starting in the Lillehammer Olympics back in 1994. Being the first country in the world being connected to the predecessor of internet and having the first Olympics after World Wide Web was invented, we had a great opportunity to make use of that technology and to unify our sports.”

### Youth Service Representatives – ung.no/Diggy Young

Representatives from the youth service platform presented their work serving Norway’s youth aged 13-20. Their platform operates through collaboration between public sectors and organizations, creating what they described as “a trusted platform where youth can access verified information and services.”

The service provides anonymous question and answer services with subject experts available year-round to help youth navigate life challenges. They emphasized involving youth voices through a youth panel to improve service quality and ensure services meet actual needs.

### Solve Kuraas Karlsen – Faktisk.no

Karlsen presented the work of Faktisk.no, a fact-checking organization established in 2017. He reframed the information challenge facing society: “It’s not the trouble to get information, but to get the verified information. And more and more we also see that we need tools to navigate this… We don’t only need the media that can cover it and show it… But we also need to empower the people to give them the tools.”

Faktisk.no represents a collaboration between five Norwegian media companies to combat fake news and verify information. The organization also works on creating international cooperation between Nordic fact-checking organizations to address misinformation across borders.

Karlsen emphasized the importance of media literacy and providing people with critical thinking tools rather than simply providing verified information.

### Liv Marte Nordhaug – Digital Public Goods Alliance

Nordhaug introduced the Digital Public Goods Alliance, a multi-stakeholder alliance that promotes open-source solutions advancing sustainable development goals. She explained that digital public goods are designed to ensure sovereignty and reduce vendor lock-in.

She challenged conventional thinking about control and sharing: “The fact that you’re leveraging open source does not mean that you lose control. The fact that you’re sharing open source does not mean that you’re losing control. It’s actually the other way around… It reduces the risk of you being locked into someone else’s system without having the ability to do the strategic changes you need to do.”

The Alliance maintains a registry of over 200 digital public goods that meet standards for open licensing, documentation, and “do no harm by design” principles. Nordhaug introduced VIPS as an example of a Norwegian digital public good.

### Tor Einar Skog – VIPS/NIBIO

Skog presented VIPS, an open-source agricultural pest management system developed in Norway. The system reduces pesticide use by predicting agricultural pest outbreaks using weather data and biological models.

VIPS has been implemented internationally, including in Mali, Niger, and Malawi. Skog emphasized how the open-source nature facilitates trust-building and local adaptation: “The open source nature of our system has helped a lot, both for creating trust and creating innovation in the countries that we have been working with… we are guiding them to adapt it locally to their needs.”

The system demonstrates practical applications of digital public goods principles across different geographical and economic contexts, with emphasis on building local capacity and enabling local customization.

## Key Themes

Several common themes emerged across the presentations:

– **Collaboration**: Multiple speakers highlighted collaborative approaches, from sports club coordination to media company partnerships to international cooperation

– **User empowerment**: Speakers emphasized providing tools and education rather than just services, whether in media literacy, youth engagement, or agricultural technology transfer

– **Open approaches**: Several presentations showcased open-source solutions and transparent, accessible platforms

– **Local adaptation**: Speakers demonstrated how solutions can maintain consistency while adapting to local needs and contexts

## Conclusion

The presentations showcased diverse Norwegian approaches to digital solutions and public services, ranging from large-scale organizational coordination to specialized fact-checking services to international technology transfer. Each speaker demonstrated different methods for addressing public needs through digital platforms while emphasizing user empowerment and collaborative approaches.

Sorla Froland: Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today. My name is Sørla Frøland and I’m here to share our story on how we organized the digital governance surrounding our movement on a national scale and created the basis of a sustainable ecosystem of reusable building blocks and data towards all the inhabitants in all parts of our country here in Norway, as well as catering for the common administrative needs of all the clubs and federations we have in sports. In my role as head of innovation in Norway’s largest voluntary-based organization, we have created the starting point of a co-creation arena. We shared and mastered it with the ambition of making it easier for everyone to become a part of activities in sports and the social arenas we offer. It makes it easier to collaborate, create value and contribute to the infrastructure as a service which we have towards the society today. Let me start off with an introduction to our organization. The Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports is the umbrella organization for organized sports in Norway. We are a grassroots-based civil society movement built on volunteerism, inclusion, diversity of activities and participators for everyone. Regardless of ambition level. Today over 30% of Norway’s population are members of our organization across all ages and regions. And more than 90% of children and youth take part of our organized sports at some point during their upbringing. Our organization goes all the way back to 1861 and has always been a citizen-driven and member-led organization. We are probably the largest NGO per capita in the world. We are 1.86 million memberships in a population of more than 5 million people. We span across 55 different federations or specific sports. We have 9,000 clubs, 204 different sports and we are represented in all municipalities and counties of Norway. But how do you unify an organization of nearly 10,000 autonomous, volunteer-led clubs? And what are the challenges along the way? Much of the challenge all the way from the start has been to solve the fragmentation of data and services which are provided towards our clubs. Currently we start with mapping how many different services that was widespread across 9,000 clubs and it ended up with a very short list of vendors and parties which survived more than 12 months as a business. So we tried to make an ecosystem with sustainable partners which shared the data so that we can reuse them and distribute them to the inhabitants of Norway. This was much of the situation in the start. Everyone has an opinion on how to do things and sometimes it’s a good idea and sometimes it’s not and we tried to see what was the most sustainable way of both collecting data and providing services to our sports organization. In many ways we saw the spark of this unification starting in the Lillehammer Olympics back in 1994. Being the first country in the world being connected to the predecessor of internet and having the first Olympics after World Wide Web was invented, we had a great opportunity to make use of that technology and to unify our sports. So a pivotal catalyst for our digital and organizational cooperation came during the Lillehammer Olympics. It was a unifying moment which sparked a cultural collaboration across our organization and a strong culture for coordination. Our continuous role has since then been to simplify and safeguard the daily life in sports through central and sustainable building blocks as well as ensuring redistribution of essential data from a master database starting with the database of a person, a member, the role and what kind of qualifications they have to conduct their role. All for getting to provide a safe environment for the kids in sports in Norway. So this has ended up with having a standardized structure on data, standardized structure on what kind of building blocks we need for the sports environment in Norway and also a business intelligence platform which the society can use to actually see and predict how the future will be in the communities in Norway based on the activity of the population. So the single point we then launched was a portal nationally to watch all the data and services we collected which is looking like this and it’s called MySports and it created an innovation lab for co-creation and we are inviting everyone in all sectors of the society to come join us and explore how we can make the future happen. Thank you very much.

Speaker: We, the youth, need a place where we can find info and services that we can trust. Diggy Young is a collaboration between public sectors and organizations.

Speaker 2: It gathers verified information and services for youth all in one place.

Speaker: In a society with an overload of information, accessible and trustworthy resources are important.

Speaker 2: We are a cross-disciplinary corporation with seven ministries working together.

Speaker: Sometimes it can be difficult to know where to look for the right information and kind of help and information. There are about 500,000 people between the ages of 13 and 20 in Norway and there are over 21 million visits to Ungdoten per year.

Speaker 2: On our webpage, ung.no, we have an anonymous question and answer survey. We have 800 articles, social media platforms, chat services, self-help tools and local support services for youth.

Speaker: These are confusing years and being able to ask questions anonymously and get safe and fact-based answers can make a big difference.

Speaker 2: Our online question survey are open and available for the youth 365 days a year with 250 subject experts answering.

Speaker: Quite often, issues require advice from different types of professionals.

Speaker 2: Here you can see all the subject experts working together to give the youth answers across sectors.

Speaker: At Ungdoten.no, we can find answers on all sorts of topics from physical issues to feelings, education, work and friendship.

Speaker 2: We also have a youth panel with 30 representatives working to improve the quality of the service for the youth. We have a close dialogue with them, developing all we do in our survey.

Speaker: We want to read and figure out… things for ourselves so that we can find info information that helps us make good choices.

Speaker 2: ung.no, our web page, helps you to become self-reliant and confident in navigating in the society. We will help them make informed choices and master life challenges, big and small, and experience a sense of mastery in their own lives. And we help them through three different levels of information and help.

Speaker: ung.no aims to make life just a bit easier for the young people in Norway.

Speaker 2: Together we are making and building a digital ecosystem for the youth.

Speaker: The voices and needs of young people should be taken into account when developing digital services in the public sector.

Speaker 2: Dig Young leads an intersector portfolio for innovation projects in the public sector, developing digital services and tools that empower and support youths.

Speaker: If you would like to know more about Dig Young and how we work, feel free to visit our stand over there. Thank you.

Solve Kuraas Karlsen: Please welcome to the stage, from Faktisk.no, Solve Kuros Karlsson. Hello, my name is Sölve, as you heard, and I’m representing Faktisk, who was established in 2017. We were a corporation between five different media companies in Norway that was cooperating because there are so few people in Norway. So to manage the economy, we have to cooperate. And we started with the fake news. We had to find the answers. But more and more we see that it’s a challenge to find out how to navigate the information. And that way, Faktisk started more and more to verify and to find the information that you’re needing to get good decisions online. You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength. You have to be strong. We will stop the steal. This is for people’s health! North Korea, or even somebody like the Saudis. Since it’s been blown up, the U.S. has done a load of gas steal. There are all kinds of smoking guns here. Only the brave gain independence. It’s important that you save your vote for the November election. Understand, it’s not necessary for people to believe this information. Once they lose trust in their leaders, in mainstream media, in political institutions, in each other… There is no climate crisis. The game’s won. Proving that Hamas systematically exploits hospitals… The truth of an unprecedented threat to democracy But it’s a counter-proof of evidence. What we see more and more now is that the information we are getting all the time is the problem. It’s not the trouble to get information, but to get the verified information. And more and more we also see that we need tools to navigate this. We don’t only need the media that can cover it and show it. We have our own newsroom, which is fact-checkers, that is checking out different things that is posted online. But we also need to empower the people to give them the tools. And that is why we more and more now is working with media literacy together with fact-checking. So that the population of Norway now how to navigate and how to maneuver when they get all this information all the time. Here is the typical how the landscape is looking for young people today. They are getting information from TikTok. And all those videos are kind of looking really nice, all of them. So who are they going to trust of them? And this is also really a challenge for young people, also adults. Because when someone is saying the same thing, but in different ways, how can you know who to trust of them? Cereal is probably the worst way you can possibly start your morning. Fruit is absolutely terrible for you. I cannot go wrong with a plate of vegetables. Please, Lord. You’ve been told that all vegetables are good for you. That is bullshit. Oh my God. Gonna have to have a glass of water for breakfast. Why I stopped drinking water and why you should too. Just gonna have to fucking brush my teeth and go for a walk. Your toothpaste is killing you. Life is hard and then you need tools to be updated. And that is why we are working closely with journalists, with scientists and research to try to find new tools to address those different challenges that we are meeting all the day through our phones. And we have to remember everything you got of information is impacting your view of life. In a world where information spreads rapidly, false information is easily circulated. False information can lead us to make poor decisions, cause distrust in the media and authorities, and divide our society. An example of this is myths about health that cause people to avoid vaccinations or resort to questionable treatment methods, or false rumors that spread fear and hatred. The consequences can be severe and they are no longer hypothetical. In recent years, we have seen far too many real examples of the division false information can cause. Fortunately, you can help reduce the spread of false information. The key is, first and foremost, to be critical of the content you share yourself. There are especially four situations in which critical thinking is crucial. Situation 1. When you don’t know the source. Are you unsure if the source is trustworthy? Or is it hard to tell who the source is? Double-check the information with reliable sources before sharing it. Situation 2. When you feel emotionally affected. If a piece of information makes you angry, upset, or provoked, it’s harder to be critical. Hold off before sharing and investigate if you can verify the information before sharing it. And investigate if you can verify the information before sharing it. Situation 3. When the information supports a belief you already hold. No matter how good we are at being critical, it’s easier to believe in information when it aligns with our own views, regardless of the origin of the information. In such cases, you should be especially critical. Situation 4. When someone profits from you sharing. Profit is often a motive for spreading false information. Does someone stand to gain financially from the content you’re sharing? Who? Be critical of the source’s motives and the information they spread. And finally, remember, you are not alone. All around the world, fact-checking organizations exist to help you distinguish between truth and falsehood. In the Nordic countries, we have four fact-checking organizations. Faktisk in Norway. Faktabari in Finland. Själkritikbyrån in Sweden. And Tjekte in Denmark. So let’s help each other. We are united by sharing the facts. So this is how it looks. We need to cooperate, not only in Norway, but around the world. So hopefully, we’ll get in touch. We have our stand over there.

Sorla Froland: Thank you. Please welcome to the stage, from Digital Public Goods Alliance Secretariat, Liv Marte Nordhaug and Thor Einar Skog from Nibio.

Liv Marte Nordhaug: Great to be here. It’s a tall order to follow, but I’ll try to do it anyway. My name is Liv Nordhaug and I lead the Secretariat of the Digital Public Goods Alliance. And I have with me here,

Tor Einar Skog: Thor Einar Skog from Nibio, the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, representing VIPS.

Liv Marte Nordhaug: And VIPS is one of the digital public goods that we have in the registry, that the Digital Public Goods Alliance Secretariat is maintaining. But I’m going to present the broader picture first, and then Thor Einar is going to give you some nerdy, nerdy details about what… VIPS is and what it does, but it really illustrates the point. Just very quickly, the Digital Public Goods Alliance is a multi-stakeholder alliance that is coming out of a UN Secretary General started high-level panel from 2018, and it’s really about bringing countries, organizations of all sorts together around advancing the sustainable development goals through open-source software, open content collections, open data, open AI systems, and with open standards as cross-cutting elements. So currently the DPGA, the Digital Public Goods Alliance, has 44 members from all over the world, many countries, UN entities, open-source organizations like Creative Commons, OSI, the Knowledge Foundation, and also technology stakeholders like GitHub and a number of think-tanks. Why does this matter? If we think about what digital public goods are, they are in a way a subset of the open-source universe where, first of all, they have some sort of relevance for advancing the sustainable development goals, meaning that there is in a way some kind of public interest ambition in them. It’s a very broad tent. The sustainable development goals, there are 17 of them, but still, it’s a very good tent to be in, in a way, if you want to make sure you’re advancing something that is benefiting society. And then it is the open-source element where we look at the licensing, but also documentation, platform independence, and that it’s really possible to actually reuse that digital solution, which is more than just the licensing, but the licensing is, of course, a necessary component of that. The last and very important part is do no harm by design, meaning that the solution must have been built in a way which is minimizing the risk of doing harm by design, that it’s been taking into account privacy, how you can protect users, security, and so on. So the secretariat that I lead, we are 12 people that are maintaining certain functionalities on behalf of this community. One of them is the DPG standard that has these nine criteria that you’re seeing on the screen in relation to these components, and solutions that are verified to meet these criteria are then made available on the DPGA registry, or the DPG registry that we maintain as a DPGA. So there you will find more than 200 digital public goods that are meeting this standard, and you’re going to hear from one of them afterwards, which is a Norwegian digital public good. I picked one from Norway, because Norway is hosting RGF, so I thought it was good form to make sure the host country had one. But just very quickly before I hand over to Tor Einar to go into depth on VIPS, I wanted to mention some of the examples of why we really think digital public goods matter, particularly from a government perspective, but also for other stakeholders, why it makes sense to use and try to both adopt digital public goods, but also share them. First of all, the fact that digital public goods are open source means that you can build on something that someone else has already done, but adapt it to your specific needs. You can also share back. The other aspect is, and it’s a topic that we’re hearing in many sessions here at RGF, is the issue of control and sovereignty, because the fact that you’re leveraging open source does not mean that you lose control. The fact that you’re sharing open source does not mean that you’re losing control. It’s actually the other way around. It reduces the risk of you being locked into someone else’s system without having the ability to do the strategic changes you need to do, and to ensure interoperability, for instance, with other solutions. And also, you make sure that there are many eyes that can scrutinize and help improve what you have built, so that there’s an opportunity to look under the hood, so to speak, which can also benefit you. The customization, the fact that you can then make changes to fit your needs, so again, it can allow you to make something more inclusive, tailor it to your particular needs, but you don’t have to build everything from scratch. That goes also to the next point, often faster and cheaper to implement than proprietary solutions. I’m saying often, because it’s not all the time, but particularly in the long run, again, because of this control and sovereignty aspects as well, that you are able to also then maintain for addressing future needs. And lastly, you can build, particularly from countries that are in the Global South, for instance, the opportunity to catalyze local vendor ecosystem development, instead of being only on the receiving end of technologies from elsewhere. It’s a great opportunity to stimulate and build out that local vendor ecosystem. With that, I want to, yeah, just lastly, these are some stats about digital public goods. We have more than 200 available, as I said. There’s almost 200 countries using digital public goods, and digital public goods have been built and shared by 125 countries, or over 125. So it’s a very, very inclusive movement. But now I want to let us hear from one particular DPG, Tor Einar, over to you.

Tor Einar Skog: Thank you. So VIPS is an application or a system that is designed to reduce the amount of pesticides used in agriculture, which protects the crops and the farmers and the consumers. So VIPS was established back in 2001, and in Norway, supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, and it was soon proven to work very well in Norway, and there was a demand to move it abroad. The source code back then was not open, and it was not really suitable to be used outside of Norway. So we rewrote the entire code in 2016, and then under an open source license. And since 2021, this has been an approved digital public good, and we are very proud of that. So we contribute to fight hunger, and to improve climate, and to improve life on land. These are the sustainability goals that we meet with our application. So VIPS works in the way that we collect weather data and field observations of pests in agriculture, and then we predict the risk of an outbreak of, for instance, potato late blight, or other pests and diseases in agriculture. And these outputs, they are shared either by farmers going into websites, or getting text messages of the crops that they’re working with, and we also produce risk maps that we are showing on the map here, that show the outbreak of the codling moth that is destroying apples in apple orchards. So the model outputs are to be shared through locally adapted services as well, not just the website that we are using. So we are sort of integrating ourselves into the context that we are in, for instance, in countries in Africa, where we have the farmer interface app in Mali and Niger. We were in a project there where we actually purchased some weather stations and got to measure temperature to help the app that you’re seeing on the picture, where the farmer is out scouting for fall armorworm, which is totally obliterating the maize crops. And this app is produced by someone else, we are cooperating with them, and then our model is telling them, now the temperature has been so-and-so, now you should go out and scout for the fall armorworm, and then the farmer is using the app to do exactly that. We are also in Malawi, we are developing a digital plant health service, and there we are also using not just VIPS, but our open source approach to sharing data, sharing code, and creating capacity down there with people with ICT knowledge down there, using our code and we are guiding them to adapt it locally to their needs. So that is basically what we are doing, and the open source nature of our system has helped a lot, both for creating trust and creating innovation in the countries that we have been working with. So that was it from VIPS. Thank you for your attention. Thank you.

Agreement points

Collaborative approaches are essential for addressing complex societal challenges in small populations

Speakers

– Sorla Froland
– Solve Kuraas Karlsen
– Liv Marte Nordhaug

Arguments

Creating sustainable ecosystems of reusable building blocks and standardized data structures to serve all inhabitants and sports organizations across Norway

Establishing fact-checking cooperation between five Norwegian media companies to combat fake news and verify information in a small population context

Promoting digital public goods as open-source solutions that advance sustainable development goals while ensuring sovereignty and reducing vendor lock-in

Summary

All speakers emphasize that collaboration between organizations is necessary to create sustainable, effective solutions, particularly in contexts like Norway where small population size makes individual efforts economically challenging

Topics

Sustainable development | Digital standards | Capacity development

Standardization and quality assurance are crucial for building trust and ensuring effective service delivery

Speakers

– Sorla Froland
– Speaker
– Speaker 2
– Liv Marte Nordhaug

Arguments

Creating sustainable ecosystems of reusable building blocks and standardized data structures to serve all inhabitants and sports organizations across Norway

Creating a trusted platform where youth can access verified information and services through collaboration between public sectors and organizations

Providing anonymous question and answer services with 250 subject experts available 365 days a year to help youth navigate life challenges

Maintaining a registry of over 200 digital public goods that meet standards for open licensing, documentation, and ‘do no harm by design’ principles

Summary

Speakers agree that establishing clear standards, verification processes, and quality assurance mechanisms is essential for building user trust and ensuring reliable service delivery across different sectors

Topics

Digital standards | Privacy and data protection | Online education

User empowerment through education and accessible tools is fundamental to effective digital services

Speakers

– Solve Kuraas Karlsen
– Speaker 2
– Tor Einar Skog

Arguments

Empowering people with media literacy tools to navigate information overload and distinguish between verified and false information

Involving youth voices through a 30-member youth panel to improve service quality and ensure services meet actual needs

Demonstrating how open-source agricultural pest management systems can be adapted across different countries while building local capacity and trust

Summary

Speakers consistently emphasize that providing users with tools, education, and capacity-building opportunities is more effective than simply delivering services, enabling self-reliance and informed decision-making

Topics

Online education | Capacity development | Digital access

Similar viewpoints

Open-source and standardized approaches provide greater sustainability, control, and adaptability compared to proprietary solutions, while enabling knowledge sharing and local customization

Speakers

– Sorla Froland
– Liv Marte Nordhaug
– Tor Einar Skog

Arguments

Creating sustainable ecosystems of reusable building blocks and standardized data structures to serve all inhabitants and sports organizations across Norway

Promoting digital public goods as open-source solutions that advance sustainable development goals while ensuring sovereignty and reducing vendor lock-in

Demonstrating how open-source agricultural pest management systems can be adapted across different countries while building local capacity and trust

Topics

Digital standards | Sustainable development | Capacity development

Information overload and misinformation are significant challenges requiring trusted platforms with expert verification and user education to help people, especially youth, navigate complex information landscapes

Speakers

– Speaker
– Speaker 2
– Solve Kuraas Karlsen

Arguments

Creating a trusted platform where youth can access verified information and services through collaboration between public sectors and organizations

Providing anonymous question and answer services with 250 subject experts available 365 days a year to help youth navigate life challenges

Empowering people with media literacy tools to navigate information overload and distinguish between verified and false information

Topics

Online education | Content policy | Children rights

Unexpected consensus

International cooperation as a necessary response to global challenges

Speakers

– Solve Kuraas Karlsen
– Liv Marte Nordhaug
– Tor Einar Skog

Arguments

Creating international cooperation between Nordic fact-checking organizations to combat misinformation across borders

Promoting digital public goods as open-source solutions that advance sustainable development goals while ensuring sovereignty and reducing vendor lock-in

Demonstrating how open-source agricultural pest management systems can be adapted across different countries while building local capacity and trust

Explanation

Despite representing very different sectors (media, digital governance, and agriculture), these speakers all emphasize international cooperation and cross-border knowledge sharing as essential solutions, suggesting a broader recognition that local challenges require global collaborative approaches

Topics

Sustainable development | Multilingualism | Digital access

User agency and participation in service design and delivery

Speakers

– Speaker 2
– Sorla Froland
– Tor Einar Skog

Arguments

Involving youth voices through a 30-member youth panel to improve service quality and ensure services meet actual needs

Creating sustainable ecosystems of reusable building blocks and standardized data structures to serve all inhabitants and sports organizations across Norway

Demonstrating how open-source agricultural pest management systems can be adapted across different countries while building local capacity and trust

Explanation

Across different domains (youth services, sports organization, and agricultural technology), speakers consistently emphasize involving end-users in design and implementation processes, suggesting a shared understanding that top-down approaches are insufficient for effective service delivery

Topics

Children rights | Capacity development | Digital access

Overall assessment

Summary

Speakers demonstrate strong consensus around collaborative approaches, standardization, user empowerment, and international cooperation as fundamental principles for effective digital governance and service delivery

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for digital governance policy – the alignment across diverse sectors (sports, media, youth services, agriculture, digital governance) suggests these principles represent broadly applicable best practices rather than sector-specific solutions. This consensus indicates a mature understanding of digital transformation challenges and points toward integrated, collaborative policy approaches.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

The transcript reveals remarkably little direct disagreement among speakers, with most presenting complementary rather than conflicting approaches to digital governance and information management

Disagreement level

Very low disagreement level. The speakers appear to be presenting different but compatible solutions to similar challenges rather than debating opposing viewpoints. This suggests a consensus-building environment where speakers are sharing best practices and collaborative approaches rather than engaging in adversarial debate. The implications are positive for the topics at hand, indicating broad agreement on fundamental principles of open access, user empowerment, and sustainable digital solutions, with differences mainly in implementation strategies and target audiences.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Open-source and standardized approaches provide greater sustainability, control, and adaptability compared to proprietary solutions, while enabling knowledge sharing and local customization

Speakers

– Sorla Froland
– Liv Marte Nordhaug
– Tor Einar Skog

Arguments

Creating sustainable ecosystems of reusable building blocks and standardized data structures to serve all inhabitants and sports organizations across Norway

Promoting digital public goods as open-source solutions that advance sustainable development goals while ensuring sovereignty and reducing vendor lock-in

Demonstrating how open-source agricultural pest management systems can be adapted across different countries while building local capacity and trust

Topics

Digital standards | Sustainable development | Capacity development

Information overload and misinformation are significant challenges requiring trusted platforms with expert verification and user education to help people, especially youth, navigate complex information landscapes

Speakers

– Speaker
– Speaker 2
– Solve Kuraas Karlsen

Arguments

Creating a trusted platform where youth can access verified information and services through collaboration between public sectors and organizations

Providing anonymous question and answer services with 250 subject experts available 365 days a year to help youth navigate life challenges

Empowering people with media literacy tools to navigate information overload and distinguish between verified and false information

Topics

Online education | Content policy | Children rights

Key takeaways

Digital governance requires standardized data structures and centralized infrastructure to effectively unify large, decentralized organizations while maintaining local autonomy

Cross-sector collaboration between public and private entities is essential for creating trusted digital services, particularly for vulnerable populations like youth

Information verification and media literacy are critical public services in the digital age, requiring both professional fact-checking and citizen empowerment tools

Open-source digital public goods provide sustainable alternatives to proprietary solutions while ensuring sovereignty, reducing costs, and enabling local adaptation

Historical catalytic moments (like the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics) can accelerate digital transformation and organizational cooperation

Small population contexts (like Norway) necessitate cooperative approaches to achieve economic sustainability in digital service provision

Youth participation in service design through panels and feedback mechanisms is crucial for creating relevant and effective digital services

International cooperation in fact-checking and digital public goods development strengthens collective capacity to address global challenges

Resolutions and action items

Continue maintaining and expanding the Digital Public Goods Alliance registry of verified open-source solutions

Expand Nordic cooperation in fact-checking through existing organizations (Faktisk, Faktabari, Själkritikbyrån, Tjekte)

Develop local capacity in countries like Mali, Niger, and Malawi for adapting open-source agricultural systems

Maintain the MySports portal as a national co-creation arena for sports organizations in Norway

Unresolved issues

How to scale digital governance models from small countries like Norway to larger, more diverse populations

Specific mechanisms for ensuring long-term sustainability of volunteer-driven digital ecosystems

Methods for measuring the effectiveness of media literacy programs in combating misinformation

Strategies for balancing open-source sharing with competitive advantages in digital public goods

Technical challenges of adapting digital solutions across different technological infrastructure levels globally

Suggested compromises

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But how do you unify an organization of nearly 10,000 autonomous, volunteer-led clubs? And what are the challenges along the way? Much of the challenge all the way from the start has been to solve the fragmentation of data and services which are provided towards our clubs.

Speaker

Sorla Froland

Reason

This comment is insightful because it identifies the core paradox of digital governance in decentralized organizations – how to create unity while preserving autonomy. It frames the fundamental challenge that many large organizations face: balancing centralized efficiency with local independence.

Impact

This comment established the central theme for the entire discussion, setting up the problem that all subsequent speakers would address in different contexts. It shifted the conversation from theoretical digital governance to practical implementation challenges.

In many ways we saw the spark of this unification starting in the Lillehammer Olympics back in 1994. Being the first country in the world being connected to the predecessor of internet and having the first Olympics after World Wide Web was invented, we had a great opportunity to make use of that technology and to unify our sports.

Speaker

Sorla Froland

Reason

This comment provides a unique historical perspective on how major events can catalyze digital transformation. It demonstrates how Norway leveraged a specific moment in technological history to create lasting organizational change, showing the importance of timing and vision in digital governance.

Impact

This historical context added depth to the discussion by showing that successful digital governance often requires a unifying moment or catalyst. It influenced the narrative by demonstrating that digital transformation isn’t just about technology, but about seizing the right moment for cultural change.

It’s not the trouble to get information, but to get the verified information. And more and more we also see that we need tools to navigate this… We don’t only need the media that can cover it and show it… But we also need to empower the people to give them the tools.

Speaker

Solve Kuraas Karlsen

Reason

This comment reframes the information problem from scarcity to verification and navigation. It’s thought-provoking because it shifts focus from information provision to information literacy and citizen empowerment, highlighting a crucial evolution in how we think about digital governance and public service.

Impact

This comment pivoted the discussion from organizational unification to individual empowerment, introducing the concept that digital governance must include citizen capability-building, not just service delivery. It broadened the scope of what digital public goods should accomplish.

The fact that you’re leveraging open source does not mean that you lose control. The fact that you’re sharing open source does not mean that you’re losing control. It’s actually the other way around… It reduces the risk of you being locked into someone else’s system without having the ability to do the strategic changes you need to do.

Speaker

Liv Marte Nordhaug

Reason

This comment challenges the conventional wisdom about control and sharing in digital systems. It’s particularly insightful because it redefines sovereignty in the digital age – showing that true control comes from openness rather than proprietary systems.

Impact

This comment fundamentally shifted the discussion’s perspective on digital sovereignty, providing a counterintuitive but compelling argument that openness enhances rather than diminishes control. It connected all previous speakers’ challenges to a unified solution framework.

The open source nature of our system has helped a lot, both for creating trust and creating innovation in the countries that we have been working with… we are guiding them to adapt it locally to their needs.

Speaker

Tor Einar Skog

Reason

This comment provides concrete evidence of how open source approaches enable local adaptation while maintaining global standards. It’s insightful because it demonstrates the practical application of the theoretical frameworks discussed earlier, showing how digital public goods can be both universal and locally relevant.

Impact

This comment served as a practical validation of the theoretical concepts discussed throughout the session, providing tangible evidence that the principles of open digital governance work in real-world applications across different cultural and economic contexts.

Overall assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by creating a comprehensive narrative arc that moved from identifying fundamental challenges in digital governance to presenting practical solutions. The conversation evolved from Froland’s initial problem statement about organizational fragmentation, through Karlsen’s insights about information verification and citizen empowerment, to Nordhaug’s reframing of digital sovereignty, and finally to Skog’s real-world validation. Together, these comments established that effective digital governance requires not just technological solutions, but cultural catalysts, citizen empowerment, open architectures that enhance rather than diminish control, and practical implementation that respects local contexts while maintaining global standards. The discussion demonstrated a mature understanding that digital public goods are not just about technology sharing, but about creating sustainable ecosystems that balance autonomy with coordination, global standards with local adaptation, and institutional control with citizen empowerment.

How do you unify an organization of nearly 10,000 autonomous, volunteer-led clubs?

Speaker

Sorla Froland

Explanation

This was posed as a fundamental challenge in organizing digital governance for Norway’s sports organization, indicating a need for further exploration of governance models for large decentralized organizations

What are the challenges along the way in creating sustainable ecosystems with partners?

Speaker

Sorla Froland

Explanation

This question was raised in the context of solving fragmentation of data and services, suggesting need for research into partnership sustainability models

How can you know who to trust when multiple sources present conflicting information in similar formats?

Speaker

Solve Kuraas Karlsen

Explanation

This addresses the critical challenge of information verification in the digital age, particularly for young people consuming content from platforms like TikTok

How to develop new tools to address the challenges of information overload and misinformation?

Speaker

Solve Kuraas Karlsen

Explanation

This represents an ongoing research need for developing technological and educational solutions to combat misinformation and improve media literacy

How to effectively integrate digital public goods into local contexts and vendor ecosystems?

Speaker

Liv Marte Nordhaug

Explanation

This relates to the challenge of adapting open-source solutions to specific local needs while building local capacity, particularly in Global South countries

How to create trust and innovation through open source approaches in international development contexts?

Speaker

Tor Einar Skog

Explanation

This emerged from VIPS experience in Africa, suggesting need for research into how open source methodologies can facilitate technology transfer and local capacity building