Reader poll: Who is Europe’s most influential tech person?

Europe has set rules for the digital world. Now it needs to convince the world’s most powerful tech firms to follow them.

The European Union is shaping a regulatory model to govern the rules underpinning the new economy. In the past year it has rapidly rolled out new rulebooks on digital competition, platform regulation, cybersecurity, data and artificial intelligence to clamp down on abuses in a tech sector where a small number of firms have become immensely influential.

As the ink starts to dry on those rules, they will face a trial by fire as authorities seek ways to enforce them and companies look at how they can challenge them.

Whether Europe succeeds depends on its most creative thinkers, its most strategic rulemakers and its most disruptive spirits.

POLITICO is looking to find the 28 people that will determine if Europe’s move to shake the tech sector will work. Our team of technology reporters is putting together a list of the personalities that will shape European technology politics and policy in the next 12 months.

Our Tech 28 list will be revealed at an online event on May 18.

It’s not a rundown of the most famous tech bros in the industry, nor is it a popularity contest to put famous politicians on a pedestal. Instead, POLITICO’s ranking shines a spotlight on the people who exert the most influence in their respective fields, often from behind the scenes, without any moral judgment.

We’re looking for the tech leaders that can go head to head with powers in Washington and Beijing. The personalities who will spark the innovations that could set the region’s tech scene aflame. The people who can solve problems like a microchips shortage that’s forced factories to lay down tools in recent months.

This is the second time we’ve laid out a list of leading lights after our inaugural Tech 28 Class of 2021. Last year’s influencers included Europe’s leading voices from the tech sector like Swedish entrepreneur Daniel Ek, who is the CEO of music-streaming platform Spotify, and politicians pioneering new tech laws like Spain’s Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz. We want to celebrate Europe’s deepest tech thinkers, loudest tech voices and toughest campaigners.

This year, we’re including a “readers’ choice” category and looking to add your tips to our selection. Fill in our survey to send in your nominations, below.

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