The tools we don't own - Digital sovereignty as a practice of resilience: Building Digital Resilience across Europe and Africa

​The Tools We Don't Own: Digital Sovereignty as a Practice of Resilience

​🗓 15.07.2026

​🌍 A Egregor Community Event

​Most impact organisations, in Europe as in Africa, run their entire operation on tools and infrastructure they do not own.

​Too often, this dependence stays invisible until it turns sharp: an account suspended, a service withdrawn, a dataset that disappears, often on the most contested subjects.

​Across Europe and Africa, the starting point looks different everywhere. That leaves an open question:
👉 How can open-source and local alternatives help build resilience, working with what's already there rather than against it?

​As AI starts to dominate the market, the digital dependence of actors that do not already own and control tools and infrastructure is threatening to snowball into increased inequality.

​This conversation will explore:

• ​what digital dependence looks like in daily operations, and when it stops being a convenience and becomes a vulnerability,

• ​why mission-driven organisations are more exposed than ordinary businesses, in both European and African contexts,

• ​how African digital public goods and open-source infrastructure offer a concrete, sovereign alternative,

• ​and what resilience can look like as gradual, affordable steps, without leaving the cost on those least able to bear it.

​Speakers

​Yann Dmitri Engoue

​President of AfrikaNova Global Network, a pan-African network of think & action tanks and business development and digital transformation specialist, who works towards the emergence of an ecosystem where technological innovation acts as a catalyst for inclusive economic prosperity across Cameroon and the continent.

​Paschal Onuroah

​Perplexity AI Business Fellow and Data and Analytics Leader, passionate about building scalable data platforms and mentoring the next generation of data professionals.

​Moderation:

​Vincent Danjean - Head of the Cyberspace and New Technologies Laboratory at Interpol and chair of the Scientific and Ethics Committee at Egregor

​Format

​🕒 Networking & introduction
🕒 Speakers conversation
🕒 Community Q&A
🕒 Closing reflections & operational takeaways

​About Egregor

​Egregor is a French endowment fund supporting social and environmental innovators through catalytic funding, strategic support and ecosystem-building approaches across Europe and Africa.