November 3rd, 2026
On November 5th, Eticas founder and CEO Gemma Galdon-Clavell speaks at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, in the session “Beyond Big Tech: building public and common digital infrastructures” (“Más allá de las Big Tech: construir infraestructuras digitales públicas y comunes”).
Gemma draws on high-risk sectors such as medicine and aviation to show what they can teach us about governing and auditing technology.
About the session
The conversation brings together Gemma Galdon-Clavell; Carolina Romero of Decidim, the open-source platform for participatory democracy; and Andrés Barragán Urbiola, Secretary General for Consumer Affairs and Gambling at Spain’s Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030. Xan López moderates.
More info on the event in the websites of España en Libertad and Círculo de Bellas Artes.
Why high-risk sectors matter
Medicine and aviation didn’t become safe by trusting their operators. They built independent testing, incident reporting, certification and accountability, and they treat failure as something to measure and learn from. Gemma will argue that the same logic should apply to the digital systems that increasingly shape public life. That means evaluating them against defined risks before and after deployment, not relying on voluntary promises.
Public and common digital infrastructure
Building alternatives to Big Tech is only half the work. Public and community-run infrastructure also needs to be auditable, transparent and accountable to the people who depend on it. The panel puts a technology builder, a regulator and an auditor in the same room to ask how that could work.
Part of a wider circle
The session closes the three-day CTRL+ALT series at the Círculo de Bellas Artes (November 3–5), coordinated by philosopher César Rendueles. Earlier sessions cover algorithmic oversight by public authorities and who negotiates automation at work.