Why we created TechFreedom, and why we think it's important

I've spent years working with organisations who exist to do good in the world. Organisations whose missions are rooted in justice, community, care, and equity. And almost without exception, the digital infrastructure those missions run on belongs to companies who don’t always share the same values.

Technology is a culture choice

I wrote recently a short linkblog riffing on a great post from RebootDemocracy asking who will shape AI in the public interest. The post makes the case that governments have extraordinary power to shape how technology companies behave through procurement, and they're largely failing to use it.

What I liked most was how clearly it articulated something I've argued for a long time: technology choices are cultural and political choices. Procurement isn't just a financial and risk management process, even though it is often treated as such. The tools you choose shape how your organisation works, what it values, and who holds power. Choose Microsoft and you're choosing a particular culture, one that in my opinion tends towards closure, risk aversion, and a narrowing of what feels possible. Choose alternatives and maybe you open up different ways of working, collaboration, different relationships with data, different assumptions about who gets to decide. Now maybe that IS how you want to work, or maybe you are willing to accept the tradeoff for other reasons, but did you ever make this choice?

Technology is never neutral, and now with AI entering the picture, the cultural shaping gets even more pronounced. Microsoft probably leads to Copilot, maybe to OpenAI. Google leads down a different path, but one designed to keep you in that ecosystem. The way models respond, what they surface and what they don't, starts to shape how people think. Every choice is a cultural one, even when it's never described that way.

And it's not just about what you choose. It's about whether anyone in the room even realises there was a choice to be made in the first place

Lists of alternatives are nice, but they don't shift things

About a year ago (around the time Elon was tearing out the heart of digital government in the USA) I shared a site listing European alternatives to US-based cloud services.  It's a great resource, everything from hosting to domain registrars to VPNs and browsers. Whether you think the concern about US tech infrastructure is overblown or not, I said at the time there were three good reasons to look: over-reliance on a few companies is never good; there are genuinely excellent tools in there; and have you looked at your risk register lately?

The link between knowing and acting, between operation and strategic can be a bridge too far. A list of alternatives,  however good, doesn't really change behaviour on its own. Maybe people look, nod, bookmark it, and then go back to the tools they know. Not because they're lazy or don't care, but because switching can feel hard, the risks feel abstract, and nobody has time to figure it all out alone.

That's the gap TechFreedom is trying to fill. Not another list, but a structured space to actually work through what your dependencies are, what risks they carry, and what you want to do about it.

It's not easy, and we're not pretending it is

The ethics of big tech are not simple. Most organisations use the tools they use for good reasons, they work, they're familiar, and they're often subsidised or free** for mission-driven organisations. We’re not interested in shaming anyone for using any particular technology, it's simply about making invisible dependencies visible so you can make deliberate choices, at your own pace.

I'll be honest about my own practice too. I try to use open source wherever I can. This blog is on Ghost because it's open source. It was easier to be on substack honestly, but I made the choice, deliberately. I build tools openly, share frameworks under Creative Commons, and default to open data. But I still use plenty of US-based infrastructure, because it’s often the easiest or even the best technology for that purpose. The point of all this isn't purity. The point is being honest about the trade-offs and making them deliberately rather than by default.

When it comes to building things, especially with AI, I've been quite vocal about designing for adaptability, using multiple AI platforms and API's deliberately, not because I think any one of them is utterly evil*, but because designing for multiple platforms builds resilience.

The TechFreedom manifesto puts it plainly: no single company should have the power to stop an organisation working overnight. Essential services need clear exit paths, backups, and alternatives. If I only build on one provider's API and they change their pricing, their terms, or their politics, I'm stuck. The same logic applies to any organisation's technology stack. Resilience means having options. It means knowing what your exit paths look like before you need them.

We built TechFreedom on European infrastructure. It was harder.

When Doug and I set up techfreedom.eu, we made a deliberate choice to host on European infrastructure. The domain is European. The hosting is European. The tools we use for the programme itself are privacy-respecting and, where possible, open.

Honestly, it was just a bit harder to do. Not dramatically harder, but enough friction that I understand why most people don't bother. The defaults all pull you towards US platforms, they're often smoother, better documented, more integrated with everything else. Choosing differently takes a bit more effort, a bit more research, a few more decisions.

That friction is itself the problem. And it's one of the reasons we think the programme matters. If even people who do this for a living find it takes extra effort, imagine how it feels for an operations manager at a small organisation who just needs things to work.

Risk registers and the questions nobody asks

In my organisational resilience work, I've spent years helping organisations think about how to anticipate, prepare, respond and adapt. Looking ahead, trying to give yourself options. What are your single points of failure? What's your plan B?

In my experience, most organisations have never asked these questions about their technology. They've never mapped every tool they depend on and scored those tools against real risk lenses like jurisdiction, continuity and surveillance. Tech decisions are often made on technical proficiency and cost. They've often never looked at their tech stack the way they'd look at their finances or their safeguarding, as something that needs active governance.

This is done better together

We’ve been quite intentional about TechFreedom being cohort-based. People working through the same process together over three sessions. You learn as much from hearing how someone else is navigating the same challenges as you do from any framework or facilitator. You spot blind spots in each other's thinking. 

Practically it's three two-hour sessions, spaced a few weeks apart. In the first, you map your technology stack, all of them, including the ones you've forgotten about. In the second, you score those dependencies against five risk lenses: jurisdiction, continuity, surveillance, lock-in, and cost exposure. In the third, you make some choices, priorities or a flexible roadmap, quick wins now, planned transitions over the next year, and strategic shifts over the longer term.

You leave with a clear picture of where you are, where your risks sit, and a practical plan for what to do about it. Plus a cohort of peers who are on the same journey, and people to keep you accountable.

If that feels like something you want to be a part of read more here or leave your email in the form below and we’ll be in touch!

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Drift

*I mean some might genuinely be evil

**free to a point and even then those corporations can change their terms quickly without much warning (yes I'm looking at you Microsoft)