In October 2025, the GovTech Hackathon Saarland took place in Saarbrücken - a 48-hour creative and programming marathon where teams develop digital solutions for public sector challenges. Our Co-Managing Director Sven Hennessen participated - and won with the project OpenFlow.
OpenFlow: Making Government Processes Discoverable
In public administration, parallel work on the same problems is common. Different departments independently implement identical processes simply because they don't know that established workflows already exist. New employees must navigate through jargon, and knowledge is lost when experienced colleagues retire.
OpenFlow solves this problem as a central search platform for administrative processes. Users can ask questions in natural language - for example: "How do I procure a software license over 25,000 euros?" - and receive:
- Relevant processes ranked by relevance
- BPMN diagrams visualizing the workflows
- Responsible contacts and contact details
- Forms and legal references
The demo scenario features Sarah, a new IT employee who needs to understand a software procurement process. Instead of searching through wikis or asking colleagues, she finds the right process through OpenFlow with all relevant information.
The code is publicly available: github.com/vensas/govtech-hackathon-2025-openflow
The Technical Foundation: F13 as a Sovereign AI Platform
OpenFlow uses F13 - a modular, open-source AI platform developed specifically for public administration. But what exactly is F13, and why is it so significant for public sector digitalization?
The Origins of F13
The name F13 plays on the function keys F1 through F12 on a keyboard. The idea: provide a new function that could be called up like F13 via a keyboard shortcut.
Development began in 2022 at InnoLab_bw, the innovation lab of the Baden-Württemberg state government. The original prototype was created in collaboration with the Heidelberg AI startup Aleph Alpha, while IT service provider BITBW handled hosting and operations from the beginning.
With the launch of F13, Baden-Württemberg became the first German state to provide its employees with AI tools in its own data center. An important milestone for privacy-compliant AI usage in administration.
Open Source and Cross-State Collaboration
Since July 2025, F13 has been available as open-source software - the largest cross-state open-source cooperation project in the field of administrative AI in Germany. The F13 Community emerged from the "First Mover Initiative" of several federal states in August 2025, and version 2.0.0 was released in early 2026.
The core principles of F13:
- Digitally sovereign: Can be operated on your own infrastructure
- Model-agnostic: Not tied to a specific AI provider
- By administration for administration: Developed for the real needs of the public sector
Modular Architecture
F13 consists of multiple specialized components:
- Chat: Interaction with language models
- RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation): Semantic search in knowledge databases
- Summary: Automatic text summarization
- Transcription: Audio and video transcription with speaker identification
- Parser: Document processing
For OpenFlow, the RAG service was particularly crucial: it enables semantic search for administrative processes without the actual process data having to leave OpenFlow - an important aspect for data sovereignty.
Saarland as a Pioneer
Saarland is among the pioneers in adopting F13. State Secretary Elena Yorgova-Ramanauskas emphasized: "The use of AI is a real milestone in modernizing our state administration."
The federal state is working together with Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia on a specialized solution for knowledge preservation in administration - a module designed to preserve the knowledge of departing employees for their successors.
The pilot phase started in August 2025, supported by the IT Planning Council and the Federal IT Cooperation (FITKO). The AI solution processes information locally and does not leave the European legal area - a crucial criterion for public administration.
Why This Matters
The hackathon experience demonstrated that the technical infrastructure for sovereign AI solutions in administration exists. Projects like OpenFlow show how this infrastructure can be concretely used to solve real problems.
The combination of:
- Open-source software for transparency and control
- Data sovereignty through local processing
- Modular architecture for flexible adaptation
- Cross-state collaboration between federal states
...creates the foundation for a digital administration that is both innovative and trustworthy.
Further Reading
- GovTech Hackathon Saarland
- OpenFlow on GitHub
- F13 Open Source Project
- F13 at eGovernment Computing
- Saarland adopts F13
Interested in GovTech Projects?
At vensas, we are deeply engaged with digitalization in the public sector and the integration of AI solutions. If you are working on similar projects or need support with implementation, contact us - we look forward to the exchange.
