Public Sector

Sovereignty determines how effective public administration remains in times of change. That is precisely what this networking event on November 19, 2026, in Hamburg’s Speicherstadt is all about. We bring together people from the fields of public administration, consulting, and technology who have practical experience with this topic.

Together with the State Chancellery of Schleswig-Holstein, mgm has submitted the A12 project for replacing Access in Schleswig-Holstein to the Open Source Competition 2026. Today the community voting kicks off: every vote counts.

The Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernization (BMDS) and DATABUND — the association of mid-sized IT service providers and software manufacturers for the public sector — officially signed a cooperation agreement on July 30, 2026. The goal is clearly stated: to accelerate the digitalization and modernization of government and public administration by systematically leveraging the expertise of mid-sized IT companies. As a DATABUND member, mgm is part of this initiative.

Following its move away from Microsoft Office and Outlook, the Schleswig-Holstein state administration continues to focus consistently on open-source solutions. With the A12 AI low-code platform from mgm technology partners, the state is accelerating the phase-out of Microsoft Access and the development of modern administrative applications.

From today, the ‘Tax return in a single click’ service enables citizens to automatically generate simple tax returns – with just one click. The service is accessible via the MeinELSTER+ app and is initially aimed at single, childless employees and recipients of retirement income. The ‘Tax Return in One Click’ service is built entirely on the A12 AI Low Code Platform from mgm technology partners, which has formed the technological foundation of ELSTER for many years.

Two days in Berlin, over 2,000 decision-makers from government, politics, and business, and one theme that ran through nearly every discussion: Those who do not control their own digital infrastructure lose their ability to act. The Future Congress on government & administration 2026 demonstrated that digital sovereignty has long been a pressing issue of the present. mgm was represented this year with two program contributions and actively shaped the debate.

The debate surrounding digital sovereignty in critical infrastructures has gained momentum. Regulators, operators and security authorities are asking the right questions: Where is my data stored? Who controls my infrastructure? Will I still be able to function in the event of a crisis? Yet an equally fundamental question is often overlooked: what about the software itself?

In this episode of Innovation Implemented, Hauke Rickertsen from the Ministry of Finance and Digitalization of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Raik Writschan from the City of Rostock, and Marcus Warnke from mgm consulting partners discuss at Noerd in Rostock what happens when the state and local governments establish genuine joint structures.

Imagine your government agency receives a bill at the beginning of the year. The software licenses for day-to-day operations have gone up in price again, this time by 17 percent. No room for negotiation, no alternatives. Many government agencies in Germany have built up digital dependencies from which they can hardly free themselves today. There is more to this than just an IT problem: it is about who retains control over critical digital infrastructure. It is about digital sovereignty.

At the end of May 2026, mgm technology partners made its A12 development platform open source – a move that has attracted attention within...