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Navigating Partnerships, Goals and the Digital Landscape with David Osimo

Decoding GovTech4All: Partnerships, Goals and Digital Landscape

Published on: 06/11/2023 Last update: 08/11/2023 News

In the remit of the GovTech4All project, David Osimo, Senior Director at the Lisbon Council and the project's coordinator, recently engaged in a comprehensive discussion with Bron Innovation, the project's communication manager.

The purpose was to elucidate the intricacies of the project and its overarching goals. Presented below is a summary of this dialogue, aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding of the GovTech4All project's dynamics and contextualise it within the contemporary socioeconomic and policy framework.

 

 

David Osimo, Senior Director at the Lisbon Council
David Osimo, Senior Director at the Lisbon Council

Why was the GovTech4All project conceived and created?
The project is a response to European Commission proposals. The European Commission sees it as a form of variable geometry, involving Member States and partner countries to find common solutions for digitising public services through start-up access and cross-border reuse. There is a fundamental need for interoperability by design, ensuring digital solutions can communicate across borders and foster reuse by other public administrations.

The second aspect involves addressing the challenge of governmental redundancy, where reinventing solutions is prevalent. Additionally, there is a recognised issue of non-competitiveness in IT procurement, particularly from external sources. To tackle this, the focus is on cultivating a unified GovTech market. This involves ensuring that startups have accessibility to government digitisation efforts, either by leveraging existing infrastructure or through innovative procurement. It is important to note that this initiative operates within a context where the European Commission lacks a formal mandate for such endeavours. The policy backdrop very much aligns with the embryonic stages of the EU Interoperability Act.

 

How have you embedded the programme?
The project operates as a consortium, with the Lisbon Council spearheading coordination. While the Lisbon Council oversees delivery, each partner actively contributes to the project, which is bifurcated into two pivotal components: 1) pilot initiatives and 2) horizontal measures aimed at paving the way for future pilots. Each partner plays a distinct role within this framework. Despite years of experience in this domain, it is crucial to note that GovTech4All diverges from the conventional incubator model. Instead, it is a solution devised by the European Commission, taking the form of a grant.

 

 

 

How is the GovTech4All governance structure organised?
Governance in GovTech4All mirrors that of projects under the Horizon Europe programme, albeit funded through the Digital Europe programme. The decision-making structure closely aligns, with a key distinction: a one-country, one-vote system, diverging from the model where each organisation holds a vote. This emphasises the equal representation of each participating country in the decision-making process.

 

How are governments and organisations involved in the project?
In the GovTech4All project, every partner organisation, whether governmental or non-governmental, holds a full and equal role. This collaborative framework extends to digital teams like GRNET in Greece, functioning as an external public organisation. The project's inclusive scope encompasses a range of contributors, from non-governmental entities such as academic institutions (DigiCampus from the Netherlands) to private organisations specialising in government digital transformation, such as GOBE in Spain. This diverse engagement highlights the project's comprehensive and multifaceted approach.

 

With such diverse partners, how have you precisely defined the goals, endorsing the objectives discussed? Have you identified a specific angle?
We go beyond merely providing a service for the European Commission; we have agency. The overarching goal we have set is fostering a unified European GovTech market, an objective shared by all partners. Our motivation to apply stems from our alignment on overarching goals, including promoting an open-source culture and facilitating start-up access. While there are similarities among partners, differences emerge, such as distinct philosophies and cultures. Nevertheless, a robust commonality of values persists, centred on delivering excellent digital public services to citizens.

 

How have you organised the operational framework?
It's a straightforward process—we initiate a call for ideas and pilots within the consortium, casting a broad net. Subsequently, we form clusters responsible for crafting well-defined pilot initiatives. A selection community, comprising all pilot partners, collaboratively decides on which projects receive funding. The most challenging aspect lies in finding reusers for the solutions; the reluctance to reuse solutions from other countries has been prominent issue in Europe. Managing 21 partners also introduces complexities, considering each government's unique timelines and queries. However, our commitment to alignment and coordination ensures that we stay focused on our goal and successfully deliver results.

 

Are there any expectations regarding the type of organisation involved?
All organisations are unique, but broadly categorised into two types: start-ups and government-to-government support. In the startup challenge, the emphasis is on offering solutions for local government reuse. The commonality lies in the shared challenges, leading to innovative solutions, such as reusing open fisca or leveraging solutions implemented in other countries. Matching, particularly in the case of open source, is strategically done before the challenge, ensuring effective government-to-government reuse.
 

What's your impression of the GovTech ecosystem?
At the European level, there isn’t a well-established ecosystem; most efforts are fragmented at the national level. However, there's a shared thread among advocates of GovTech — they think alike and grapple with common problems. Despite the lack of a formalised European GovTech ecosystem, there exists a remarkably similar wavelength across countries in terms of ensuring a unified GovTech market and community.

 

If you sense there is public awareness, do you also feel there is an alignment of stars?
Currently, there are many stars aligning around the goals of GovTech. There's a notable excitement about achieving results that support start-ups. The stars we aim to align are those within the digital government teams. While the concept of GovTech has always been attractive, with many engaged in innovative procurement, the crucial alignment needs to occur within the actual public administrations that are implementing GovTech initiatives—these are the stars we are working to align.

 

Why is it crucial to align those stars?
Achieving excellence in service delivery is paramount, and aligning stars is fundamental for that. With partners like DINUM from France, deeply embedded in the core of government, the goal isn't to have a pet project tucked away in some corner of public administration. Instead, the aim is for transformative, game-changing projects—digital infrastructure revolutions akin to Ukraine's all-in-one digital public service app, Diia. It is about scaling impactful projects that can make a substantial difference.

 

Could you articulate the dreams and aspirations of the GovTech4All consortium?
The aspirations revolve around achieving national legitimacy, as many countries possess significant resources for GovTech. However, the challenge lies in making GovTech widely acknowledged and accepted by governments. It is often intricate to explain what GovTech truly entails. There exists a shared wavelength connecting people, but distinguishing between genuine GovTech initiatives involving co-creation and agility and those merely paying lip service can be challenging to convey.