I had the honour of participating in a roundtable on “Security and Data Flows in the European Union”, where I gave a talk on the key role of home-grown computing technologies as a strategic national asset. The event was organized in Trento by the University of Siena and Fondazione Bruno Kessler on June 28-29. It was focused on the scientific, juridical, and societal aspects of data flows as well as the conflicting requirements of data protection and security in Europe. The roundtable gathered together speakers from political institutions, legal professions, private companies and academia in the area of social sciences, law, and computer science. It has been a truly enlightening experience and an excellent opportunity for cross-fertilization between worlds that do not happen to talk with each other very often.