I love open data I love that governments
are taking their data cleaning it
anonymizing it and putting it out to the
world
I love the transparency that comes with
open data you should know what your
governments up to I love that if you
check the weather app or you knew what
time your bus was coming today that was
open data
I love the innovation that we can
inspire in our economy when governments
release data last year I was working on
open data and the Government of Canada
and I got to learn about the data
liberation initiative back in the day
the Canadian Association of public data
users made a deal with the government to
access government data and so originally
once a year eventually once a month the
government would mail data to these data
users originally using floppy disks
eventually using CD ROMs and these data
users they would come together in the
libraries and the research research
centers of our country and they would
look at government's data today in
contrast anybody anywhere can access
data from hundreds of governments with
just a couple of clicks technology has
changed the world government has never
had such great tools and technologies to
serve citizens technology is changing
the very fabric of our society I'm not
just talking about the internet I'm
talking about artificial intelligence
robotics the Internet of Things
computers have never been faster cheaper
our leaders they're on Twitter they're
on Instagram they are broadcasting live
technology is changing government and
it's bringing with it the promise of
services that are better faster and more
attuned to the needs of our unique
communities and yet our communities they
don't trust government institutions
we've never been so polarized in an era
when you can skip the dishes with just a
couple of clicks and you can
I ride from the palm of your hand
governments are failing to provide
reliable access to simple websites the
world has changed and government is
failing to keep up so today friends
let's talk about digital government I'd
like to offer you a vision as well as a
few case studies stories from here at
home in British Columbia fit together
give me cause for hope but let's start
first with the burning platform why does
this matter I look around the world and
I see turmoil I see the UK bracing for
Briggs at the u.s. in the midst of a
trade war we've got a climate crisis
we've got an affordability crisis and
youth from New York to Hong Kong to
Prince George they are screaming to be
heard so what's the government to do in
the face of all this turmoil well I
would argue it's time to get back to
basics the purpose of government is to
serve citizens and to improve our lives
in the digital age government needs to
be digital by default one of the first
times that I heard about the concept of
digital government it was in reference
to Estonia and there their vision of an
invisible government the idea was that
government services should be automated
around life events birth death
unemployment any of these sorts of
things would spur automated service
delivery reducing bureaucracy more and
more governments around the world are
coalescing around these kinds of
ambitious visions you take the digital 9
the leading 9 digital countries they've
explicitly decided that they're going to
embrace technology to serve citizens
before we get too far though what does
digital government mean it's an idea
clearly whose time has come for me
digital government means government's
taking modern tools tools from the
Internet age from the fourth Industrial
Revolution and using them to deliver
services that warrant the trust of
citizens I've seen a lot of different
governments do this kind of work in my
experience proficient governments that
are
good at digital tend to adopt habits in
three big categories first they're
obsessed with the users with the
citizens they literally sit people down
and they watch them click through
websites click through apps and they see
where they stumble and when they do
stumble the government's redesign they
recognize that the citizens are always
right they recognize also that in
jurisdictions like British Columbia
there is a digital divide they recognize
that not everybody is connected to the
Internet
not everybody's comfortable online and
so they designed for everybody they
recognize that there are vulnerable
communities and sometimes these new
technologies they can entrench bias and
so they design for inclusion second
these governments they're agile in
software development when we talk about
being agile it means essentially that we
set a goal for ourselves we take a few
steps towards that goal and then before
we get too far we stop and we look at
what we just learned and we use those
learnings to design our next steps
our next sprint being agile means that
we have the courage to release code
early in often and we have the
discipline to impose on ourselves a
culture and processes that are conducive
to great outcomes we embrace agility not
just in software but in everything we do
the third big category of habits is that
these governments they're open like me
they love open data which means of
course data that anybody anywhere
anytime can access they can download it
share it manipulate it these governments
they have work in the open they embrace
open source code they believe in open
innovation they recognize that at any
given moment in time they don't employ
every single person or possess every
single resource that could lead to a
positive outcome and so they build with
communities so that's digital government
I know that many of you are probably
thinking well that's a bit rich having a
government official standing up there
talking about the promise of digital
when there are these big IT failures
yes healthcare.gov in the u.s. the
Phoenix pay system
Canada these are big IT projects that
went wrong digital government is a bet
that when we're open when we're agile
when we design with and for users we get
better government and that can lead to a
better society I'm gonna try to make
this a little bit more concrete and I'd
like to offer a few stories from here at
home in British Columbia and I'd like to
start with one that is very near and
dear to my heart which is the exchange
lab the lab is a place since a physical
place in Victoria and I for me
represents a recognition that when we
take on these ambitious visions for a
brighter future sometimes we have to
fundamentally redesign our processes the
lab is a place where government
ministries can come and they bring their
tough tough problems the lab helps them
define the problem and then teams them
up with top tech talent so that together
they can build solutions at any given
time they're up to 12 teams in the lab
and right now they're working on topics
like conservation impaired empowering
patients through access to health
information data driven approaches to
climate change
these are some of the toughest problems
of our age I'll try to make it a little
bit more concrete with a specific story
one of my favorites is about Aaron Aaron
is a mine inspector and he works for the
Ministry of Energy Mines and petroleum
resources he came into the lab last year
and he he didn't have the information
that he needed to take an evidence-based
and risk-based approach to meta -
inspecting mines so the lab teamed him
up with some top technologists and
together they created the mines digital
service essentially gathering all the
relevant information analyzing it -
boarding it and giving mine inspectors
like Aaron the information that he
needed to keep our minds and our
communities safe sometimes when we do
this kind of work we also come up with
big barriers things that are slowing us
down and one of the things that the lab
took on in the last couple of years is
around procurement often it's tough for
government to buy technology quickly
and so they took a process that can
often take up to 12 months and they
reduced it down to 17 days contract
award within 17 days of having received
the bits this kind of innovation allows
government to more effectively work with
small businesses and means that we can
have more innovation within our
communities like to move to a second
category of examples identity identity
is the backbone of the digital economy
in British Columbia we've had a number
of successes the services card is a
great one there are about five million
people in British Columbia and so far
4.6 million have a service card and this
is basically a unified identity card
British Columbia was the first
jurisdiction in North America to
successfully take the driver's license
and the health card and bring them
together this is exciting because it
means we can onboard all sorts of other
different government services into this
success case we can also be more
ambitious though because to collaborate
in the digital age we need to trust we
need to have a degree of confidence that
the corporations and the people who were
interacting with online are who they say
they are normally to get that kind of
trust we build usernames passwords that
sort of thing but they're administered
by third parties who may not always have
credibility in an age of surveillance
capitalism there are so many different
entities who are hungry for our data and
it's absolutely critical that we build a
trust system that works for everybody so
in the government of British Columbia
the corporate registrar took on the task
of adopting new technology using
blockchain they put the power in the
hands of the data owner so that that
data owner could put their information
on the distributed ledger ledger and
through a series of cryptographic codes
through hashes they could ensure that
there wouldn't be undue manipulation of
that information what this does is
essentially enable digital secure
interactions like to pivot to third
category of examples around service
design I talked earlier about how a
digital government a highly proficient
digital government the
with and for users service design is
really what that what that means it
means we're very thoughtful and
inclusive in designing the way
government serves the people an example
last year British Columbia was on fire
1.4 million Hector's we're on fire in
the summer of 2018 over 2,000 people
were evacuated over 5,000 people were
mobilized to fight the fires at a cost
of 615 million dollars
whose devastating so what government did
they decided let's see if we can get
some insight through data analytics to
help fight these problems going forward
they took it a number of different data
sources I'm talking topographical maps
tree density data historic fire patterns
lightning strike data and build these
into 3d maps so that emergency
preparedness professionals as well as
leadership could take a look at these
different maps and use the to build up
the strategies service design can often
be much simpler it's about more than
just taking forms and putting them on
the internet though one specific example
is previously in British Columbia when
people were getting divorced they would
have to fill out a form and take it in
to a counter in the courts well
unfortunately people are making a lot of
mistakes you know the probably through
no fault of their own it's a stressful
time and that probably weren't the
easiest worms but essentially what
government did is embarked on a service
design process people were having to
come back with these forms up to seven
times so they looked at where the errors
were often being made in these forms and
designed a cleaner more meaningful
process providing an online wizard so
that people could more easily input the
relevant information hopefully reducing
stress and another wise type tough time
all these examples they go far beyond
just efficiency yes there's the
efficiency piece but there's also a
fundamental rethinking of how government
operates you can think for the first
time about inclusion through digital you
can imagine a world where instead of you
know a single parent having to go and
take an hour out of their job in the day
to go to
service counter instead they can be
accessing government services in the
evening on their couch while their kids
are in bed similarly you can think of
somebody lives in the Downtown Eastside
in Vancouver who might have had a number
of addresses or maybe they don't have an
address at all previously that would
have been a barrier to accessing
government services now it's more easy
for them it's much easier for them to
access those services so in a digital
age it seems clear that governments can
do better governments can clean up their
processes make these services faster
easier more citizen-centric my vision is
that one day hopefully in a
not-too-distant future citizens will be
able to access government services
however and whenever they want if they
want to deal with the humans well those
humans at the service centers on the
phone those humans should be equipped
with excellent tools to provide accurate
timely information and services and if
citizens prefer to access government
services through digital means you know
through a chatbot Alexa Siri I want
those digital experiences to be seamless
beautifully designed and easy in order
to deliver on this though we need the
help of citizens
I want my digital services my digital
future to be based on my values things
like gender equity inclusion
sustainability accessibility what do you
want technology and an innovation are
not an end in and of themselves they are
tools for us to get to a brighter
society one where government is truly at
the surface of the service of people we
can do this together we can build it as
communities I'm extremely excited to
build a digital future together so that
we can have a digital government indeed
a government that serves everybody
[Applause]