LPI at SFSCON 2026: Exam Sessions and a Talk on Linux in Schools

• November 13-14, 2026
• NOI Techpark, Bolzano, Italy

Linux Professional Institute (LPI) will hold certification exam sessions at SFSCON 2026, the South Tyrol Free Software Conference, on November 13 and 14 at NOI Techpark in Bolzano.

About SFSCON

SFSCON reaches its 26th edition in 2026, with Digital Sovereignty as the theme of the year. The conference runs over two days at NOI Techpark and covers tracks including Digital Sovereignty, Engineering, Open Hardware, Legal, Policy and Compliance, Community, Open Access, Education, and LLM, alongside hands-on workshops across both days. Sessions are held in English and Italian.

Attendance is free. Conference registration is open through the SFSCON ticket portal [https://pretix.eu/noi-digital/sfscon26/].

Exam Sessions at SFSCON 2026

Two LPI exam sessions will run during the conference, in the Auditorium (A2) at NOI Techpark. Each session seats 55 candidates, for a total of 110 exam places across the two days.

The exam fee is covered by NOI Techpark for every candidate who registers, not only for students.

How to Register for an Exam

Conference registration and exam registration are two separate steps. A free SFSCON ticket gets you into the conference; a seat in an exam session has to be booked separately.

Exam registration will open soon. The schedule of the two sessions and the link to book a seat will be announced on this page and through SFSCON’s own channels. Places are limited to 55 per session.

Talk: Linux in Schools and Universities

How can schools and universities integrate Linux into their curriculum? Werner Fischer, Transfer Manager at Thomas-Krenn.AG and member of the LPI Board of Directors, will address the question in the Education track at SFSCON 2026.

Parents worldwide often face this situation: as soon as their children reach the fifth or sixth grade, their school starts using cloud-based IT solutions from a large, well-known commercial company. All communication with teachers is stored in the cloud of this commercial provider.

I experienced this firsthand: After using Linux for five years, our older son was given a heavily subsidised laptop equipped with cloud-based solutions from a large commercial company when he reached the fifth grade, as were all students in our home country. Wanting to do something about it, I ran for the Board of Directors of the Linux Professional Institute to support schools in integrating Linux know-how into their curriculum.

In this talk, I demonstrate how schools and universities can achieve this and how their students can benefit from obtaining an international certificate that proves their Linux know-how.

Saturday, November 14, 13:20, Seminar 3, NOI Techpark

More talks from the Education track are listed in the SFSCON 2026 program [https://www.sfscon.it/programs/2026/].

Why Certification at SFSCON

A conference whose theme is digital sovereignty is an unusually fitting place to sit a vendor-neutral exam. Sovereignty over your own infrastructure begins with people who understand it, and a certification that belongs to no vendor is the cleanest proof that the understanding is real.

There is a practical argument too. An exam session held inside the event removes the two things that usually postpone certification indefinitely: finding a test center and finding the time. A candidate already in the building can leave Bolzano with a credential recognized worldwide.

About NOI Techpark

NOI Techpark is South Tyrol’s innovation district, where companies, research institutes and the university work side by side on sustainable development. Operated by the public company NOI Spa, it sits in Bolzano on the grounds of a former aluminium factory, with a second campus in Brunico.

Its work is organized around four technology areas: Green, covering energy systems, sustainable buildings and water technologies; Food and Health; Digital, covering IoT, the Open Data Hub and artificial intelligence; and Automation, covering manufacturing, mobility and agri-automation. The park reported more than 70 laboratories and over a thousand research and development projects in its 2025 annual report.

NOI Techpark hosts SFSCON and is covering the cost of the LPI exam sessions held during the conference.

Links

• SFSCON 2026: the official SFSCON website
• SFSCON program: the 2026 program
• Conference registration: the SFSCON ticket portal
• NOI Techpark: the NOI Techpark website
• LPI certifications: the LPI certification catalog

Photos: @SFSCON, CC BY-SA