BlueHats

BlueHats is an initiative that came into being at the end of 2018 as a result of the following observation: many public servants have expertise in open source software, either because they use it regularly, deploy it or develop it, but they don't know each other and, as a result, don't help each other. Worse still, they may bump into each other at open source conferences without recognising each other and knowing that they work in public bodies!

So we came up with this simple idea: to bring these forces together with an emblem that recalls the world of open source software: a hat. Blue being both the colour of government and the colour of Europe, which we were already seeing moving forward on this subject with hackathons and bug bounty type events, we opted for blue hats and an English name: 'BlueHats' was born.

Today, BlueHats is an active community of over 2,000 public sector employees working to promote open source software in the public sector. They meet every day in several Tchap lounges (a BlueHats lounge, another dedicated to the interministerial open source software platform, and another focusing on working groups linked to this platform). They meet regularly for small business hackathons ("garagethons"), the most recent of which saw the Helm Charts shared between several ministries.

BlueHats is ready to go international: it's not a trademark registered by DINUM, but a movement to which it is proudly contributing, in the hope that other countries will join in.