Singapore's design thinking, Slovenia's Digi Info points, and building an EU-wide public blockchain
Edition #59 Belgium has big digital plans for its time as Chair of the EU Council, while in Edinburgh digital government is being proposed for the most bizarre of functions...
In our previous edition, our focus was on governments’ attempts to compete with - and reduce dependencies on - their private sector equivalents. We covered Luxembourg’s WhatsApp Rival, as well as the Dutch government’s answer to ChatGPT.
This week, we look at this Dutch example in a new light, returning our focus to AI. This week alone, a number of AI initiatives have begun to manifest across Europe and Asia against the backdrop of the EU’s newly-passed AI Act, and we cover a number of initiatives illustrative of its impact on digital government. Elsewhere, we examine Taiwan’s digital government legacy and highlight cutting-edge digital ways of working in Singapore and the UK.
Our main stories this week:
Belgium to focus on a public sector European blockchain during its EU Presidency
Evaluating Taiwan’s digital government legacy
Unlocking scale: challenge prizes and high-value innovation
Don’t forget to check out our GovTech news in brief and the theory behind the practice.
Belgium to focus on a public sector European blockchain during its EU Presidency - Martin Greenacre, Science Business
Belgium‘s upcoming 2024 EU Council Presidency already has its central digital agenda point: transnational blockchain infrastructure designed to promote transparency.
Mathieu Michel, Belgium’s Secretary of State for Digitization, has proposed rebooting a European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) project first launched in 2018, structuring it as a European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC - used to support the delivery of multi-country projects) under the name Europeum.
Europeum - set to be headquartered in Belgium - would be used to facilitate digital driving licenses and other similar documentation, as well as for procedures like VAT. It may also underpin of the digital euro.
Elsewhere, Matthieu’s agency is also proposing a “European Algorithms Agency” to mitigate the risks of AI while still reaping the benefits of the technology, and introducing public verification onto social media, allowing users to only view other verified users.
Evaluating Taiwan’s digital government legacy - Various Authors
This week has seen a number of articles on Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs, long considered one of the shining lights of digital government in Asia.
Si Ying Thian profiles the work of Digital Minister Audrey Tang, from Alignment Assemblies aiming to build public consensus on how AI should serve people through to an annual Presidential Hackathon designed to use open-source data to cover the Taiwan’s most pressing needs.
On the other end of the scale, Beth Simone Noveck argues that – despite initial early success in 2018 – Taiwan’s digital engagement platform vTaiwan has not made a lasting impact on public participation in policymaking.
Finally, earlier this month LSE hosted Audrey Tang for a discussion covering local data resilience, data embassies, and why it’s not a good idea to overdepend on Elon Musk.
Our Take: Of the three pieces, Noveck gets to the heart of a key issue in digital government – how to ensure gradual and consistent evolution of 21st-century governance, not just a flash in a pan. As she notes, vTaiwan is far from the only culprit of this. Decide Madrid for example, which we have covered before at interweave, has managed to produce just one new policy from the 28,000 proposals submitted to the platform.
Unlocking scale: challenge prizes and high-value innovation - Eszter Czibor et al., StateUp
StateUp latest report looks at challenge prizes, laying out opportunities to support the scaling of innovations through open competition.
Funders and practitioners – including governments – are increasingly recognizing the value of challenge prizes, but there has been little consensus on how to define “scaling”, let alone measure its success.
StateUp identifies more than a dozen distinct strategies to scale innovation, highlighting two mechanisms crucial for scaling prizes: the catalyst that is the reputation boost for winners of challenge prizes, and allowing unusual suspects to prove the merits of their innovations.
The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for funders and designers, including embedding prizes within a broader innovation ecosystem and recognizing the value of partnerships between the public and private sector.
Our Take: Challenge Prizes have been used to great success in the digital government space, as evidenced in our interview with Lithuania’s Arune Matelytė a couple of months ago. This report goes some way to producing a standardized framework for evaluating their success, a key step to unlocking scale going forward.
GovTech News in Brief
Not a data party but real social added value - Digital Overheid
This article reflects on the Netherlands’ digital government initiatives one year in, with a particular focus on its Federated Data System, which aims to support government data sharing.
GDS works on generative AI chatbot for Gov.UK - Mark Say, UK Authority
The UK’s Government Digital Service has announced a GenAI chatbot for the Gov.UK platform, trained only on content published on the website’s 800,000 pages.
Could a dog DNA database tackle fouling in Edinburgh? - BBC News
In one of the more bizarre- and amusing – examples of Digital Government this week, one Edinburgh councilor is calling for a “dog DNA database” to be set up to tackle the issue of dog fouling in Scotland’s capital.
“It starts in schools”: Design thinking skills needed for the future workforce - Singapore’s Education Ministry - Si Ying Thian, GovInsider
Singapore’s Ministry of Education held a Design Education Summit that aims to bring user-centered design thinking to the next generation of students.
Artificial intelligence act: Council and Parliament strike a deal on the first rules for AI in the world - Council of the EU
The European Parliament and Council have agreed to a landmark “Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act” after a marathon set of talks, with the draft regulation aiming to ensure AI systems in the EU are safe and respect fundamental human rights and values.
Slovenia’s Digi Info point map - Slovenian Government
As part of efforts to connect the unconnected, Slovenia’s digital Ministry has set up 222 physical ‘Digi Info Points’ around the country, where people can go to ask for help on navigating the government’s digital platforms.
Our Take: In an upcoming interview with Slovenia’s digital minister, Emilija Stojmenova Duh told interweave that “it is important that we do not wait for people to come to us. Instead, it is our responsibility to go to them and provide the knowledge they need”. Digi Info points have become the flagship symbol of that policy, taking leave from best practice in Poland and elsewhere.
GPT-NL: Safe and ethical AI to strengthen Dutch society - Netherlands AI Coalition
Following the news that the Dutch government is developing its own GPT, the Netherlands AI Coalition explores some of the benefits the country can expect to see from its AI development.
How are Singapore, Canada and the UK building data skills in their workforces? - Jesse Samasuwo, aPolitical
Using case studies of the likes of Singapore and the UK, aPolitical highlights the importance of big bets and continuous learning in upskilling civil servants’ data capabilities
IMF, World Bank and BIS in first 'tokenization' collaboration - Reuters
Three of the world’s leading multinational financial institutions - the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) - have announced a collaboration on digitizing some versions of the (currently paper) financial instruments they issue, potentially serving as a foundation for “tokenized” international debt.
The Theory Behind the Practice
Towards Sovereign AI: Europe’s Greatest Challenge - Francesca Bria, Euractiv
Francesca Bria argues that Europe must look beyond regulatory approaches in developing an “EU Digital Sovereignty Fund” if it wants to produce digital public infrastructures that are a viable alternative to the current private sector approach.
Generative AI and policymaking for the New Frontier - Beth Noveck, GovTech
Northeastern Professor Beth Noveck explores the new challenges and opportunities that AI is providing in the policymaking space.
To achieve data interoperability, we need to start with “people interoperability” - Natalia Carfi, World Bank
Standards setting is only part of interoperability, Executive Director of the Open Data Institute Natalia Carfi argues. For it to be successful, it has to be complemented by “people interoperability” to open up data and collaboration across and within governments.