Why La Colmena is rethinking its technological infrastructure, and documenting the process publicly. Part one of a series.
Beatriz Vílchez Silva · Brussels · January 21st 2026
The trigger
Trump’s second term changed something for me. Not just the election itself, but what followed. Last year, during my Executive MBA at Future London Academy, I visited Palo Alto. I saw the ecosystem up close: the energy, the optimism, the belief that technology could solve everything. Then came the second Trump administration, and I watched the tech CEOs line up. Some quickly, shamelessly servile. Others more gradually, but just as completely.
What shocked me wasn’t just the servility. It was the realisation of how deeply dependent we all are. I found myself renewing subscriptions, Netflix, Amazon Business, and asking: what happens if I don’t? What happens when the systems we rely on every day are controlled by people whose values have become so explicitly transactional, so divorced from any broader responsibility?
It wasn’t just anger, though there was anger. It was an intellectual click. A realisation that I couldn’t continue like this and remain coherent with my own work. Every day since, that tension has been there.
Why it matters for La Colmena
At La Colmena, we create strategies, capabilities and narratives for clients who refuse to simply adapt to the future. They want to shape it. We work with what we call future-makers: organisations that believe they have agency, that they can build the world they want rather than just respond to the one they’re given.
The promise we make, implicitly but fundamentally, is about strategic autonomy and independence. The capacity to make choices that align with your values and your vision, rather than being swept along by forces you can’t control.
But here is the contradiction: if I’m asking clients uncomfortable questions about their autonomy, their dependencies, their capacity to act, I have to start with myself. How can I credibly help organisations think about strategic independence while my own practice runs entirely on American tech infrastructure? While I’m clicking “renew subscription” without even questioning it?
Very few of my clients are asking these questions yet. One or two have reached a certain maturity. But the conversation is just beginning to emerge. And if I’m going to be part of that conversation, I need to do the work myself first.
What sovereignty means (and doesn’t mean)
Let me be clear about what I mean by “technological sovereignty”, because the term gets thrown around a lot and often means different things.
For me, it’s a mix, and the order matters. First, it’s ethical: refusing to be dependent on systems governed by people or principles I fundamentally disagree with. Second, it’s technical: control, interoperability, open formats, the ability to move if I need to. Geography matters, but it’s not the whole story. Yes, I’m thinking about European alternatives. But focusing only on “American versus European” misses the deeper issue. Under Trump, we’re dealing with someone profoundly unstable at the head of the world’s dominant tech infrastructure. That’s not an anti-American position. It’s a risk assessment.
This is not anti-American sentiment. It’s not a boycott. It’s not technological purism.
And here is where I need to address the obvious contradiction: I use Claude daily, an AI assistant built by Anthropic, a California-based company. I’m documenting a journey toward technological sovereignty while using American AI.
I assume this contradiction because Anthropic is, for now, one of the few AI companies seriously grappling with ethical limits in their development. They’re building technology in service of humans, and they’re actively working to understand how that technology evolves. That matters to me. It’s a conscious choice, not a dependency I’ve drifted into.
Which brings me to the key distinction: the difference between suffered dependency and conscious choice.
The real danger isn’t just that we depend on these systems. It’s that we’ve stopped thinking about it. We’ve accepted the idea that “there’s nothing we can do”. That’s false. We can start by thinking. Intellectual dependency is the first danger. Once you’ve surrendered your capacity to question, to imagine alternatives, to believe that change is possible, that’s when you’ve really lost your sovereignty.
The approach
I’m treating this like I would treat a client project: methodically, transparently, with a clear process.
Here is what I’m going to do:
- Map the current state: every tool, every subscription, every dependency.
- Identify the critical ones. Where are we most vulnerable? What would actually hurt if it disappeared tomorrow?
- Research alternatives: European options, open source, different models.
- Test progressively. No big bang, just careful experiments.
- Document everything: the decisions, the tests, the failures, the compromises.
What I’ll share publicly:
- The mapping of our current tools.
- The alternatives we test, and why.
- What works and what doesn’t.
- The compromises we accept and the ones we refuse.
- The conversations with the network of independent designers and developers I work with on every project, because this can’t just be my decision. La Colmena is not one person with a laptop; it’s a way of working with others, and their tools are part of the question.
Timeline: about a year, I think. But honestly, I won’t really know until I’m in it. These things take the time they take.
What I’m willing to lose: time and ease, certainly. Maybe some compatibility. Maybe some features I’ve got used to. I don’t know yet. That’s part of what I want to document: what the real costs are, not just the theoretical ones.
What I hope to gain: peace of mind. Resilience. Legitimacy, the ability to look my clients in the eye when I ask them hard questions about their own dependencies. And maybe, if this goes well, a methodology that others can use.
Why document this publicly
I could do this quietly. Just migrate La Colmena’s infrastructure, make different choices, never mention it. But I think there’s value in making this public, even if it’s uncomfortable, even if I fail at parts of it.
First, because it’s a form of necessary activism. Not loud, not performative, but real. Showing that it’s possible to ask these questions, even as a small practice. Maybe that opens the door for larger organisations to think about it, too.
Second, because it connects directly to Lines of Flight, the intellectual project I’m building. Lines of Flight is about refusing to choose between technological enthusiasm and technological critique. It’s about living in that tension productively. This felt like the most accessible starting point, and frankly, the most urgent. Lines of Flight began as a critical inquiry into AI power structures: how systems presented as neutral optimisation are actually crystallised maps of corporate desires. That same realisation extends to the entire technological infrastructure we depend on.
Third, and this is personal: I want to set an example for my partner and my son. I want them to see that you don’t have to just accept the way things are. That you can ask questions and try to live differently, even when it’s hard.
What I hope this provokes: conversations. With my peers, other designers, consultants, small practices like mine. With my clients, current and future. With anyone else asking these same questions and feeling alone in it.
Am I trying to create a replicable methodology? Maybe. But first, this is my specific case. If it helps others, great. If not, at least I’ll have done the work for myself.
What I want you to take away from this: that you can ask the question, no matter your size. That the process itself, even if it turns out to be complicated, even if the changes end up being microscopic, will do us good. The act of questioning, of refusing intellectual dependency, of believing we have agency: that matters as much as whatever technical changes we end up making.
What’s next
I’ll publish as we go. When there’s something worth sharing, a mapping, a test, a realisation, a failure, I’ll write about it. No fixed schedule. Just honest documentation of a process in motion.
The next post is the mapping: what tools we actually use at La Colmena right now, and what we’d lose if they disappeared. → Technological Sovereignty Takes Time: Notes from the In-Between
If this resonates with you, if you’re asking similar questions or have already started this journey, write to me, share your own experience. This works better as a conversation than a monologue.
And if you think I’m wrong, if you think this is naive or misguided, challenge me. That’s useful too.
Let’s figure this out together.
Bea La Colmena Design, Brussels
Also published on Substack.