Digital Summit

3 October

All times provided are local (Ottawa, EST)

Tuesday 3 October

18:00 – 19:00

Reception

Co-hosted by the Government of Canada and Global Government Forum

Tuesday 3 October

19:00 – 19:30

Welcome and introductions

Stephen Burt, Chief Data Officer of Canada

Kirsten Tisdale, Managing Partner, EY Canada

Knowledge partner:

Tuesday 3 October

19:30 – 21:30

Putting digital at the heart of decision-making

In the modern world, every evidence-gathering, service design or organisational change project rests on the use of digital technologies; so digital staff should play key roles from initial concept to final appraisal, working closely with fellow professionals such as policymakers and project managers. Too often, however, the digital team is viewed as a back office or support service, and important decisions are taken without the input of those best qualified to comment – with inevitable, and suboptimal, results.

Smarter governments are taking action to bring digital leaders into the heart of decision-making – requiring departments to allocate seats on boards, for example, and formalising participation in policymaking and structural reforms. Just as other senior professionals need training in digital skills, digital leaders often benefit from training in fields such as policymaking and organisational change. And promising digital leaders should – like their peers in other fields – receive support and guidance to move into organisational leadership roles. At this session, participants will discuss how digital leaders can play a fuller role in strategic planning, policymaking and organisational change, ensuring that their influence on key decisions reflects the centrality of their work to successful planning and implementation.

Presentations, followed by group discussion

Presenters:

• Clare Martorana, Federal Chief Information Officer, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, United States of America

Discussions take place over dinner and the session ends at 21:30

4 October

All times provided are local (Ottawa, EST)

Wednesday 4 October 

09:00 – 10:30

Digital strategies that stick: driving delivery from the centre

Ever since the digital agenda emerged more than a decade ago, central leaders have wrestled with the challenge of how best to drive progress across the civil service – supporting, encouraging and requiring departments to adopt and implement cross-government digital strategies. The tactical tide here has ebbed and flowed, from the hard levers of spend controls and mandatory standards to more collegiate approaches such as technical support and co-creation. But everywhere the goals remain broadly the same: to ensure that all parts of government adopt the capabilities, tools, policies and standards required to make full use of digital technologies, realising the potential of data and reshaping services around user needs.

As well as introducing levers and support to drive change within departments, central leaders must incentivise and monitor progress. Some governments are hiring or managing departmental digital chiefs centrally, or embedding digital goals into permanent secretaries’ performance targets. Some carry out digital maturity audits of departments, or set and monitor departments’ performance against agreed metrics. Covering both aspects of this crucial topic, this session will consider how national digital leaders can best turn their digital visions into concrete change across government.

Including presentations and discussion

Presenters:

• Mark Vermeer, Director Digital Government, Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Netherlands
• Katja Väänänen, Head, Digitalization Unit, Public Sector ICT Department, Ministry of Finance, Finland
• Thomas Beautyman, Deputy Director – Government Digital Capability, Cabinet Office, United Kingdom

Session followed by refreshment break

Wednesday 4 October 

11:00 – 12:30

The evolution of AI: fresh challenges and emerging opportunities

Over recent years, digital leaders have been getting to grips with the challenges presented by Artificial Intelligence in the public sector. How to safeguard accountability, ensuring that decision-making processes are transparent and explicable? How to ensure that algorithms ‘learn’ the right lessons from training data, averting inequitable or discriminatory outcomes?

Fresh developments in AI, however, present a new set of questions. How should organisations respond to the emergence of ‘generative pre-trained transformer’ systems, such as ChatGPT, which have obvious potential applications in fields such as recruitment and research? What rules should govern the use of facial recognition technologies, which can have results as illiberal in law enforcement as they are valuable in digital ID? And can a global consensus be found among democratic nations over how best to protect privacy, ethics and human rights in a world of proliferating AI? At this session, participants will discuss the progress made so far in public sector AI – and the new challenges that we face.

Including presentations and discussion

Presenters:

• CHANG Sau Sheong, Deputy Chief Executive, Government Technology Agency, Singapore
• Steven P. Maynard, Partner, Government & Public Sector Consulting Leader, EY
• Eric Hysen, Chief Information Officer, Department of Homeland Security, United States of America

Knowledge Partner

Session followed by networking lunch

Wednesday 4 October 

13:45 – 15:15

Caught in the underWorld Wide Web: threats and safeguards in cyber security

Cyber security has never been a bigger challenge for digital leaders. While state-backed hackers mount attacks to steal information, disrupt infrastructure, distort elections and embarrass elected leaders, criminal gangs constantly seek to defraud public bodies, access personal data and infiltrate government systems with ransomware. Meanwhile, many governments face both growing backlogs in their work to replace legacy systems – leaving ageing IT networks increasingly vulnerable to attack – and ever greater demand for support and protection from infrastructure providers, public service providers and businesses.

While the risks are growing, however, political leaders are increasingly aware of the danger: cyber security can prove a powerful lever in securing investment to transform legacy services, and politicians are moving against suspect technology providers and platforms. This session will explore recent changes in the nature of cyber security risks, and examine how digital leaders can best protect their organisations, governments and countries from the evolving threat.

Including presentations and discussion

Presenters:

• Rajiv Gupta, Associate Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Canada
• Neelam Sandhu, Chief Marketing Officer & Elite Customer Success Officer, Blackberry
• Ann Dunkin, Chief Information Officer, Department of Energy, United States of America

Knowledge Partner:

Session followed by refreshment break

Wednesday 4 October 

15:30 – 17:00

Laying the groundwork for a data-based revolution in public services

During the pandemic, the enormous power and potential of data was made clear to civil servants, elected leaders and the public alike. Information from across and beyond government was brought together to track both the virus’s prevalence, and its impact on every field of human activity. New services, pulling together previously isolated databases, brought delivery online and supported people through the crisis. After years of steady progress, the long-touted data agenda finally took off.

Meanwhile, the pandemic has also burdened governments with debt and hit economic growth, leaving many civil services short of the capital budgets to fully realise data’s potential. Yet there are plenty of ways to improve governments’ use of data without having to rebuild services from the bottom up. Common standards can be introduced, supporting interoperability and data exchange across government. Legislation can be clarified and data skills improved, tackling people’s concerns about sharing datasets. Staff engagement programmes such as Canada’s Public Service Data Challenge can tap into public servants’ expertise, catalysing innovative data projects. This session will explore how digital leaders can best capitalise on the data agenda’s new momentum and profile, driving changes that will underpin a new generation of public services and data capabilities.

Including presentations and discussion

Presenters:

• Alison Pritchard, Deputy National Statistician and Director General for Data Capability, Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom
• Stephen Burt, Chief Data Officer of Canada

Wednesday 4 October 

17:00-17:20

Summary and thanks

Summit concludes 17:20