This year's annual members@denic event took place from September 29-30 2026 at the Mövenpick Hotel Stuttgart Airport, continuing DENIC’s tradition of bringing members together for updates, discussions, forward-looking insights and networking.
The annual meetup is a great chance to catch up with old and new faces, swap the latest news, and chat about key topics and trends, all while just having a good time in a relaxed setting.
Kicking off in the afternoon of September 29 with a get-together, Dr. Torsten Lodderstedt, project manager of the German EUDI Wallet Project gave an insight on the government-run app that meets eIDAS 2.0 regulation requirements. An open design to work together with other systems, government agencies and companies can develop their own digital services based on the EUDI Wallet. What was planned as 60 minutes presentation quickly became a 2-hour session with vivid discussion on the project itself, showcasing the big challenge as well as the potential of this initiative. We're curious to see its introduction, which is planned for 2027.
Naturally, the first evening ended with an informal social meetup worthy of the occasion, before we wrapped up the day at the hotel bar.
DENIC executive board member Barbara Stolz started off the second day, welcoming members and providing an overview of DENIC’s latest status. Thomas Keller then shared updates on technical developments, including the progress of DNS4members, a project aimed at enhancing DNS services for members.
Pawel Kowalik delivered a product update on .de domains, highlighting growth in the number of registered domains over the past six months, with the total surpassing 18.1 million. Interestingly, we also see a significant growth in DNSSEC adoption, which saw a 25% year-over-year increase. He also provided a NIS-2 status report, outlining that about 9% of all .de domains are now fully verified.
The session continued with Fabio Trotta, who shared recent observations from DENIC Business Services and support experiences related to NIS2. He offered practical insights, answered questions from members and highlighted ongoing improvements.
After a coffee break, Sabrina Heber and Peter Koch led a session on Internet Governance, focusing on the implementation of the e-Evidence package. Briefly summarized, the EU regulates cross-border access, i.e. between countries, while national governments have their own regulations for access inside the country. Two regulations for the same thing, accessing electronic evidence from inside and from outside your country.
The second part of the session was about the deployment of Internet standards considering NIS-2, the Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Internet Standards Deployment. Again, in a nutshell, we're looking at identifying and adopting the best available standards and practices in each of the following categories:
Disclaimer: While none of these methods are actually named in any regulation, this is our spontaneous understanding and interpretation.
Particularly regulatory EU rules, its translations into national law and translating into guidance for actual appliance in day-to-day business, are yet another example of DENIC’s commitment to fostering a secure and compliant digital ecosystem. Thank you for tackling such topics!
The afternoon began with Pawel Kowalik introducing OpenPaq, a tool provided by DENIC, designed to improve address validation and trust in domain registrations. Uli Retzlaff followed with a presentation on the brand study and outlook for the 40th anniversary of the .de domain, reflecting on its evolution and prospects. We can expect some practical outcome on this, DENIC members should be curious and have an eye on the communication on actions to come!
The final session, also led by Pawel Kowalik (who definitely earned an award for most presentations and topics on this day!), explored the rise of the Agentic Web, a concept poised to transform how users interact with digital services, specifically DNS and domains. It's an outlook on the future, with new products like DNSid of Identity Digital and ANS of GoDaddy being just two recent examples towards which direction current developments within AI are evolving: Agentic Journey, API first and OAuth, MCPs. We're living in fast paced times, and can be excited for things to come.
The official part of the day concluded with a Q&A session moderated by Thomas Keller, allowing members to engage directly with DENIC’s leadership.
And of course, with an outlook on next year's session, which will be in Berlin!
members@DENIC wouldn't be complete without a proper and hearty evening session, this year at the Cannstatter Wasen where we had dinner inside the ‘Schwabenwelt’ beer tent.
Another members@DENIC in the books, and what a blast it was! The energy, the discussions, and the camaraderie made this year’s event a standout. Whether it was presentations, diving deep into discussions, or just enjoying great food and drinks at the Cannstatter Wasen, it’s clear why this gathering is a highlight for everyone.
Huge thanks to all the speakers, participants, and the DENIC team for making it such a lively and productive time. Here’s to even more collaboration, innovation, and fun next year!