Welcoming Henri Verdier and Adriana Groh to We Make Commons
The digital commons movement is only as strong as the people who show up for it — and today we're thrilled to welcome two of its most tireless builders into the We Make Commons community: Henri Verdier and Adriana Groh.
Henri Verdier: from Etalab to the world stage
Henri Verdier has spent his career proving that public institutions can be architects of open digital infrastructure rather than just consumers of it. As the founding director of Etalab, France's open data and public-sector innovation agency, he helped lay the groundwork for a generation of civic tech built on transparency and reuse. He went on to serve as France's Ambassador for Digital Affairs, carrying the conviction that digital sovereignty and the digital commons are not opposites — they're the same fight, seen from different angles.
Henri has long argued that public money spent on software should produce public goods, not throwaway code locked inside a single ministry's server. That principle — that shared digital infrastructure is a form of public investment — is exactly what We Make Commons exists to celebrate and defend.
Adriana Groh: funding the invisible infrastructure
Adriana Groh has made it her mission to fix one of the commons' oldest problems: the critical open-source projects that hold up the internet are chronically under-resourced, maintained by volunteers who rarely get paid for the load-bearing work they do. As director of the Sovereign Tech Agency (formerly the Sovereign Tech Fund), she built one of the first public funding mechanisms explicitly designed to invest in open digital infrastructure — sending real money to maintainers, security audits, and tooling that everyone depends on and almost no one funds.
Adriana's work is a reminder that "commons" isn't just a philosophy — it's a funding and governance problem that needs institutions willing to take it seriously. Few people have done more to turn that idea into a working program.
Why this matters for We Make Commons
Henri and Adriana approach the digital commons from different vantage points — one from public diplomacy and open government, the other from sustainable funding for open infrastructure — but they share the same core belief: the tools, data, and knowledge that power our digital lives should be built, governed, and maintained as shared public goods.
That's the spirit behind every contributor in our Hall of Fame, and it's exactly the spirit Henri and Adriana bring with them.
Welcome to We Make Commons, Henri and Adriana. We're glad to have you.