Digital Public Infrastructure for the Public Good

15 June 2023, 5:30 pm–7:00 pm

The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) invites you to the sixth public talk of the IIPP 2023 Festival: The Entrepreneurial State 2.0. - Rethinking the State in the 21st Century.

Event Information

Open to: All
Organiser: IIPP Communications

iippcomms@ucl.ac.uk

Thursday 15 June 2023 | 17:30-19:00 (BST) UK Time

Increasingly, all governments are digital governments.

The public goods, services and policies are intermediated by digital systems that create both new opportunities and risks. If we seek more Entrepreneurial State’s that have the capacity to be dynamic, innovative and agile, what digital public infrastructure needs to be put in place to facilitate these new capabilities.

This panel will discuss the opportunities and challenges in conceiving digital public infrastructure as a foundation for core government and even societal services. Governments have long been responsible for organizing - and sometimes provisioning - public infrastructure - what is its responsibility in a digital world to do the same. What are the emerging risks around privacy, access and governance that this digital public infrastructure might pose - in both democratic and non-democratic regimes?

Join this conversation to learn how governments can help support the creation of digital public infrastructure - around identity, payments, licensing and sharing data - so that civil servants, businesses, and others can deliver radically better services to the public more safely, efficiently, and accountably.

The panel discussion is chaired by David Eaves, Associate Professor in Digital Government at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and will include speakers such as Anir Chowdhury, the Policy Advisor of the a2i Programme of the ICT Division and the Cabinet Division of the Government of Bangladesh supported by the UNDP, Matthew McNaughton, Principal of the SlashRoots Foundation, a social impact organization utilizing user-centered design, ICTs, and data to improve the design and delivery of public services and development programs in the Caribbean, Priscilla Wilkens, Senior Economist in Innovation and Digital Economy at Bank for International Settlements - BIS

This event is part of the IIPP 2023 Festival: The Entrepreneurial State 2.0. - Rethinking the State in the 21st Century. #TheEntrepreneurialState2.0

About the Speakers

Anir Chowdhury

The Policy Advisor of the a2i Programmme of the ICT Division at Government of Bangladesh/UNDP Bangladesh

Anir Chowdhury is the Policy Advisor of the a2i Programmme of the ICT Division and the Cabinet Division of the Government of Bangladesh supported by the UNDP. In this capacity, he leads the formation of a whole-of-society innovation ecosystem in Bangladesh through massive technology deployment, extensive capacity development, integrated policy formulation, whole-of-government institutional reform, and an Innovation Fund. His work on innovation in public service has developed interesting and replicable models of service delivery decentralization, public-private partnerships, and transformation of a traditional bureaucracy into a forward-looking, citizen-centric service provider. More about Anir Chowdhury

David Eaves

Associate Professor in Digital Government at UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Previously a lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School where he taught and wrote on digital era public administration, digital transformation and the governance of digital public infrastructure, David has co-founded Teaching Public Service in a Digital Age, which has sought to bring together faculty from around the world to co-design and share an open licensed curriculum to teach the minimum needed digital competences for future public leaders. These materials are now used by dozens of faculty members in over 20 universities around the world David has partnered with Public Digital to co-hosts an annual convening of digital government leaders from around the world. He has also taught policy analysis in the MPP core curriculum and ran a highly successful Executive Education program on Digital Transformation.

In addition to his work at HKS David co-founded and served as CEO of a civictech start up that successfully grew to serve over 400 governments across North America. He’s advised on governance and collaboration strategies for open source communities such as OpenMRS, Drupal and Mozilla and provided training to almost every cohort of Code for America fellows, White House Presidential Innovation Fellows and Code for Canada fellows.

David is also proud of his work as a negotiation adviser to numerous tech organizations, governments and environmental groups. He served as negotiation advisor to a coalition of Canadian environmental government organizations during two years of negotiations with the Forestry Products Association of Canada (FPAC) which helped cement the ground-breaking Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement More about David Eaves

Priscilla Koo Wilkens

Senior Economist in Innovation and Digital Economy at Bank for International Settlements - BIS

Priscilla Koo Wilkens joined the BIS in September 2022.

Prior to this, she served in various roles at the Central Bank of Brazil, including heading the Pix Management Division and co-leading the technical development of the Brazilian Credit Information System. Priscilla holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo and a master's degree in Public Administration with a concentration on Economics and Finance from Cornell University.

More about Priscilla Koo Wilkens

Matthew McNaughton

Principal of the SlashRoots Foundation at The SlashRoots Foundation

Matthew McNaughton is a Principal of the SlashRoots Foundation, a social impact organization utilizing user-centered design, ICTs, and data to improve the design and delivery of public services and development programs in the Caribbean. In this role, he develops strategies and leads projects that focus on practical applications of ICTs, open government and citizen participation in governance. Matthew is a thought and practice leader on using ICTs and data for the public sector transformation. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Caribbean Open Institute and eGov Jamaica, which leads the digital transformation of the Government of Jamaica’s citizen interactions. More about Matthew McNaughton