Call for Participation: Open Source Healthcare at FOSDEM 2027 Open Source Healthcare is getting its FIRST devroom at FOSDEM 2027 in Brussels, on the afternoon of Sunday January 31st. Healthcare is one of the few domains where open source directly shapes clinical outcomes and public health resilience, yet the ecosystem remains fragmented across platform layers, governance models, and regulatory contexts. This devroom brings together the teams building the open healthcare ecosystem, from device-level diagnostics to national digital health infrastructure, to talk through shared standards, safety governance, and how independently built projects interoperate in the field. Topics We are looking for talks including, but not limited to, these areas: Standards & Interoperability Shared data layers and interoperability across health platforms (FHIR, OpenHIE, OHS AI Commons etc.); standards for open source medical hardware. Governance & Safety Distributed safety governance for open source medical and diagnostic software; quality assurance across software and hardware medical supply chains (e.g. ISO 13485); licensing and SOP models for clinical-adjacent open source, including emergency-response contexts like COVID-19. Open Hardware & Devices Biosensor platforms for pathogen and disease surveillance; open hardware for environmental health and safety monitoring; the state of open hardware and its potential impact. Access, Equity & Adoption Bridging the gap between designers/creators and end users of open source health devices; case studies on moving a tool from prototype to field deployment (e.g. Glia tourniquet/DMDM). Research Open research models and collaborative R&D in health science. Pharmaceuticals & Vaccines Open vaccines, including work like Dr. Elena Bottazzi's open COVID-19 vaccine; the prospects and challenges of open pharmaceuticals. Policy, Regulation & Sustainability Engaging health regulatory bodies when submitting open source technologies for review; foundation governance vs. building on shared platform layers; long-term support of health technologies when product lines are discontinued or companies go bankrupt. We're looking for 10 and 25 minute talks from maintainers, engineers, researchers, implementers, and policy folks working where software, hardware, and health meet. Dates: CfP closes Friday, November 20, 2026 at 23:55 UTC Submit at fosdem.org/submit (choose the "Open Source Healthcare" track) Speakers notified: November 27, 2026 Schedule published: December 7, 2026 Before submitting, please make sure you can attend FOSDEM in person and deliver your talk if it’s accepted. Our schedule is tight, and late cancellations leave empty slots after we’ve already had to turn away many strong proposals. Unfortunately, we cannot offer travel funding for speakers. Best, Addie *"The most fulfilled people are the ones who get up every morning and stand for something larger than themselves." Wilma Mankiller, Chief of the Cherokee Nation* *Addie Cobb* Head of Open Source Program Office Varro Life Sciences O: +1 (800) 380-6135 C: +1 (512) 354-5057 Email: addie@varrobio.com Website: www.varrobio.com LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/company/varrobio/> | X | Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567290977324> | Instagram <https://www.instagram.com/varrolifesciences> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free.www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>