In this episode, I have the pleasure of chatting with Edd Elliot and Johnny Hugill from PUBLIC, Europe's leading GovTech accelerator and venture firm.
With explosive growth in the GovTech marketplace and new technologies aimed to enable local governments to operate an entirely different way, we see tremendous opportunity to redefine public service as we know it. We talk about the state of GovTech and hear advice for those in public service navigating this increasingly complex and fast moving space.
More info:
Featured: PUBLIC (public.io)
Episode guests:
Edward Elliott, Head of Growth at PUBLIC
Johnny Hugill, Head of Research at PUBLIC
Visit govlaunch.com for more stories and examples of local government innovation.
Lindsay: (00:05)
Welcome to the Govlaunch podcast. Govlaunch is the Wiki for local government innovation and on this podcast, we're looking at industry trends with a group championing the use of emerging technologies in solving public problems and improving the lives of citizens. I'm Lindsay Pica-Alfano, co-founder of Govlaunch and your host. With explosive growth in the gov tech marketplace and new technologies aimed to enable local governments to operate an entirely different way, we see tremendous opportunity to redefine public service as we know it. Today, I have the pleasure of chatting with Edd Elliot and Johnny Hugill from PUBLIC, Europe's leading gov tech accelerator and venture firm. We'll talk about the state of gov tech and hear advice for those in public service, navigating this increasingly complex and fast moving space. Thank you both for being here today. Can you quickly each introduce yourselves and share a bit about your roles?
Edd: (01:03)
Sure. I'm Edward Elliott. I'm head of growth here at PUBLIC. PUBLIC, uh, in one line, uh, short as we can go, helps the public sector work with new technology and new technology providers, and vice versa, helping new technology providers work with them.
Johnny: (01:19)
Hi, I'm Johnny. I'm head of research here at PUBLIC, uh, and I've led a lot of our work with, uh, different European governments on their, uh, digital transformation and their broader journey to becoming more innovative and agile.
Lindsay: (01:33)
Fantastic. Well, today we're going to talk a lot about gov tech. Before we begin though, would love for your help defining this buzzword for our listeners. So let's start. What actually is gov tech?
Edd: (01:46)
Yeah, a really big question to begin with it. And I think, um, Johnny in many ways, I'm sure can give a better sort of dictionary definition than I can, but, um, maybe to give a few initial thoughts from, from my side, um, the word gov tech itself is a very kind of live and quickly changing term. What Gov tech meant 10 years ago is very different than I think what gov tech means now. I mean, even two years ago, you could say that gov tech, um, meant different things to different people. So what it does now, and I think part of that is that more and more companies, more and more organizations are identifying themselves as gov tech organizations, which is sort of changing the nature of the time. And I guess the ecosystem that, that lies behind it. Um, I guess what always comes to mind for me a little bit, when we talk about gov tech is more of a kind of change through different eras, um, of interaction between technology and government.
Edd: (02:42)
If we think back to like the early 90s, for example, those sort of public sector, it, which was very outsourced, it was very expensive. Um, you know, government didn't really do a lot of this in-house. Um, there's then sort of a movement and sort of e-government potentially, um, which in the UK has been the likes of the government digital service or the United States, the United States digital service where public services are building more technology themselves. I guess gov tech could be seen as maybe the next progression of this, particularly with the introduction of cloud, for example, where technology is becoming cheaper, faster, easier to build more people can build it than ever before. And that's creating a kind of plethora of products, like solutions that government can utilize to solve point solutions.
Edd: (03:28)
And it's that kind of mixture of both, I'd say like a market of suppliers who are providing to government, both services and products, um, but also kind of, I guess, a broader kind of attitude that lies behind it, of looking to approach technology in a slightly different way than maybe we'd been able to do, you know, five years ago or 10 years ago.
Johnny: (03:50)
I think gov tech gov tech is kinda one of those concepts where it's kind of easier to point to examples of it rather than providing a holistic view of what it is. So I think everyone can kind of, uh, understand when a, when a service or a journey is kind of what we would all call gov tech. I think the big thing that we would say is that it started off a few years ago and we drove this really hard ourselves actually as being quite narrowly defined as, uh, startups and scale-ups working with government in the same way that like FinTech was startups and scale-ups, um, work in financial services. I think we, since then, and the broader community might have felt like that's probably too narrow.
Johnny: (04:23)
And what we instead want to capture is the broader sort of sense that it's a modern, flexible, newer startup-led type approach to government services. The question then obviously becomes, well, what is it, what does it mean for a service to be modern and intuitive and, uh, you know, startup ethos. Um, and I think that's the, that's the bit that's probably harder to define. I think there are a few things that we probably would see common across most golf tech services. So, I mean, first it's like a really strong focus on usability and design, uh, working closely with end users. The second is the kind of, uh, agile iterative incremental approach to building products. Again, sort of taking inspiration from, uh, how products are built in the tech sector, uh, with traditional VC funding. Um, clearly the startup scale up and non traditional vendor role is another key component of gov tech.
Johnny: (05:10)
I think there's a fourth thing, which again, kind of leans heavily into the, um, building in the open style approach. It's now becoming quite popular in the tech sector. And it's a sort of big trend in Silicon valley is like building really openly within users and communicating the whole journey as you go. Um, I think there's probably another thing that we could kind of steal from the tech sector, which is that there's quite a big role for kind of specialists, uh, subject matter experts and operators and kind of shaping the product and vision. I think, um, one of the big things we've seen in, in like big disruption in lots of sectors is that often it's someone who's been working in the sector for 15, 20 years, who's kind of figured out a better way of doing things rather than a kind of generalist technology company that, that does everything.
Johnny: (05:5)
And I think a lot of the biggest like gov tech successes we've seen have, have been driven by small teams of people who bring together those expertise. And then finally it's the kind of, uh, prototyping testing, uh, type approach, um, that, that is really common in the tech sector. So what I would say is, um, gov tech should look and feel exactly like how technology is being built in Silicon valley and in the tech hubs of, of Europe. Um, and it should, you can kind of quite intuitively sense how that has shifted and how that's different from maybe how technology was built in government, uh, even 10 years ago.
Lindsay: (06:21)
Well, I do appreciate that you bring up the startup ethos. That you don't necessarily need to be a startup, but having more of that culture as you're building out your technology and working with end-users and iterating, I think is a really important point. Do you see a benefit to breaking gov tech down into its constituent parts? For instance, we've got an industry for transport technology, health technology, public safety, et cetera. So what are your thoughts there?
Edd: (06:46)
Yeah, I mean, I think in ways there's sort of benefits, um, from approaching it from, from both sides in some senses I can completely see almost from, from a buyer's persona or from a policymakers persona, being able to drill down into as quickly as possible. What is the solution or the product that solves my particular challenge? You know, the answer to that may well be companies that don't see themselves as gov tech companies right now. So absolutely I think, you know, thinking of things as gov tech, shouldn't preclude us from thinking of, um, individual verticals as well. What I would say though, is that actually, you know, for a long time, at least in the tech sector, doing it more from a supplier point of view, there has always been these vertical segmentations of health, you know, smart cities, whatever it happens to be.
Edd: (08:05)
So as an umbrella term, Jeff tech, I think still adds quite a lot of weight. Um, even if we within that do want to kind of segment off and, and think of things slightly more vertical specific when it comes to actually implementing solutions.
Johnny: (08:20)
And we've, uh, had to spend quite a lot of time over the last few years, as you can imagine, sort of like trying to generate excitement for gov tech and share that it's a big thing. And one of the ways that we have successfully done that is that we have basically tried to convince people that, uh, education technology, uh, transportation, smart cities, uh, health care, social care, some of these really big venture backed sectors are actually the biggest customer is usually government in them. And the big, the big challenge we've had is that there's been quite high levels of funding and penetration in B2C or B2B versions of those sectors, but not in the, in the core BTG stuff. So, um, we're sort of really big on telling the story that actually all this stuff that you people invested in all the time and raised billion dollar rounds for and people were really excited about are often gov tech or at least interface with gov tech.
Johnny: (09:05)
I think the single biggest reason it will comes under this umbrella is, uh, is procurement or at least is like the way stuff is bought this kind of sales channel. Not only is it pretty similar selling to a healthcare authority as it is selling to a local government or a transportation department, of course there are differences, but a lot of it is quite similar and feels equally painful often. Um, but there are also similarities between the, those kinds of authorities in the UK and France and Germany and Poland and Lithuania. And I think that's, again, one of the reasons we're quite big on this kind of overarching gov tech umbrella is we can understand quite intuitively some of the challenges that might happen with public procurement.
Lindsay: (09:42)
Well, it can be really difficult for these public servants to identify who's in this space, um, helping local governments identify who is in the space is a large component of what we do at Govlaunch. And our missions are very well aligned there. Want to talk a little bit about public's role in helping connect local governments with opportunities to leverage leading gov tech?
Edd: (10:03)
Sure. So we, we do lots of different things is that there should be the answer, I guess, in short, but, to dig into a few, we run a lot of challenge programs. So we work very closely with local governments in very in-depth ways, um, to help define a set of challenges they may be facing where they might be looking for technology as a potential solution to that challenge. And then we'd go out as the market and we help support them find, uh, and then also kind of evaluate, um, great suppliers, um, who might be able to solve those challenges and support them in implementing pilots. We also do a lot of work when it comes to kind of research and, and also hands-on, um, advisory work to, to government when it comes to thinking through. Okay, what are the challenges that, um, you know, technology providers face when trying to interact with your department, whether that be at a procurement level or more of their kind of strategy, um, kind of level, um, and then finally, actually probably most relevant for this discussion. We used to organize, uh, ecosystem events. Um, the largest of which actually is, is called the gov tech summit, um, which happens once a year around October, November, but we try and get into a room, um, local government, but also central government as well alongside kind of leading entrepreneurs, um, alongside, uh, larger corporates, investors and the way that ecosystem, just to sort of talk through, you know, what is it we're trying to achieve here?
Edd: (11:20)
What could public services look like through better technology and actually what is the kind of roadmap we can think of together to getting there?
Johnny: (11:28)
I think, I I'd agree with your assessment that beginning Lindsay, that a big challenge is the, the initial discovery. And I think that's why, you know, things like Govlaunch are so valuable because, um, it's the discovery of solutions. It's the discovery of communities of practice. It's, it's all of the kind of connections in an area where it's really hard to find those connections. That's that is, I'd say like the first big problem. I think, where we might have moved slightly over the past couple of years is we're trying to get as hands on as we can in the kind of nitty gritty of the delivery of some of this. Partly because as I said, I think the big thing we realized is that in a way govtech transformation is like, it was like the ultimate enterprise sales challenge.
It's like, there's a big procurement and sales cycle thing. There's like funding there's, uh, there's like data standards, there's interoperability with existing systems. There's moving away from your current legacy approaches.
Johnny: (12:13)
Those problems are well known and well documented. I think we found that in a lot of spaces, um, the most useful thing we could do with our time given our mission was to really try and solve some of them and, and help to remove some of those and barriers. It's both the kind of combination of the identifier connecting communities, and then, um, the moving away, some of the difficulties barriers and sludge unfortunately takes time, but is, is really what kind of gets us out of bed in the morning.
lindsay: (12:39)
Even if these local governments do discover these new emerging technologies, there's a lot of hesitation to move forward specifically with startups. Edd, you mentioned earlier, the risk appetite is a little bit different for the public sector than it is for the private sector. What advice would you give to those a little bit weary of emerging tech?
Johnny: (12:59)
I think the first thing I'd say is that it has been quite eye-opening as I said, as we've really sort of got, um, under the hood of some of these problems and, and really kind of been on the ground. The risk profile challenges become increasingly important because so quite often it's seen as like a question of, uh, national government, policy or procurement approaches, or it's seen as a, you know, a encouraging words from senior leadership, but really these decisions do come down to the individual preferences, uh, decisions, attitudes, biases of, of individual decision makers. And I've seen really, I have seen firsthand in lots of different countries. Um, people having quite a instinctive bias away from working with smaller companies.The advice I would give the first is that, um, you know, try and take as much inspiration from the successes of startups in the private sector and venture sectors.
Johnny: (13:47)
And the main thing probably is to just try and fund things in as incremental and small ways as you can. So, so really the best possible way you can manage risk is through effective, uh, designing and scoping of projects and contracts. If you, if you scope a project effectively, if you have clear stage gates, if you don't pay for everything upfront in one big chunk, that is the most effective way that you can manage risk. So that's my first point is, is really, I think a lot of this stuff can be just tackled with good planning and good risk management as boring as that sounds. And then the, the second point is, uh, I think, you know, we're still even, even if you take a bias towards startups, right, we're just still haven't even scratched the surface for how much these smaller companies can get involved in, in, in public sector, um, services, uh, in the UK. Until pretty recently the UK biggest success story has been in, in FinTech, in financial services, a whole wave of amazing, world leading companies have come out of the UK. And that's partly because for whatever reason and sometimes the quite active government support, um, there was a pretty active, adoptive customer base, both in terms of larger financial institutions. And in terms of customers are being served by by FinTech products.
Johnny: (14:53)
And the UK FinTech sector, I think I saw was something like 15% of all financial services revenue in the UK. So if you, if you think, okay, 15 is a kind of benchmark for what good venture, technology company, uh, success in a sector looks like, I think government is truly below one point or 1.5 around that kind of kind of number. So I would say even if you can even be risk averse and think that startups should be three or 4% of total government technology spend, and that will still be a huge movement away from where we currently are. So that those would be my two bits of advice, um, you know, manage projects properly. And, uh, don't be fooled by the progress that we still need to make.
Edd: (15:34)
Definitely. And maybe just add to, um, I guess maybe slightly more kind of lightweight pieces of advice. Um, the first of which would be you're completely not alone in your risk aversion if you're feeling like, you know, a member of local government and you're listening to some of these conversations and the word startup, or thinking through AI or machine learning or any of these other technologies feels alien to you. Um, that is not something that is unique to you. In fact, there are hundreds of thousands of other local government officials throughout the world in the US and the UK who are in the same position who are trying to think through, um, how technology can improve productivity, improve the way in which services are delivered. And that actually from my experience, and this is slightly anecdotal, but I, I would love to see, you know, I'm sure Govlaunch, um, has a huge amount of data in this area that, um, there is much more we can do to connect individuals in that position to learn from one another.
Edd: (16:33)
It's, it's amazing how siloed often you can feel when you're in those positions. So just a simple piece of advice. If you're feeling risk averse about this technology is go try and talk to others through Govlaunch who are trying to implement similar schemes or think about similar schemes, learn from the challenges that they've faced and learn from the successes that they've had. One of the best ways to feel more comfortable in these environments is just quite literally just try and find ways to break that cycle of, you know, the small silos you there then try to go to events where you're talking to people who are building technology, um, you know, try and find courses or find, you know, different kinds of training that provides you additional skills in this area. Um, if it sounds like really simple things, but purely from a cultural level of feeling less risk averse, it will probably over time have quite a large difference in terms of your risk appetite and what you feel is risky versus not risky.
Lindsay: (17:26)
Definitely. You mentioned AI, I think about blockchain, these types of things that for a lot of people in local government, they're going, I have no idea where to even begin, what does this even mean? There's no shame in that and breaking that down to its very fundamental pieces and presenting it in a way that really anyone can understand and digest is it is an important part of the journey toward being a more innovative government. Technology is obviously moving very quickly. Johnny, this question might be more directed toward you, but what would you say is the status of gov tech today? Like where are we at now?
Johnny: (18:00)
Yeah, it's a kind of hard one to quantify it and especially, uh, it's changed so much in the past a couple of years. There's loads of positive signs, right? So if I think about Europe where we, where we do most of our work, we've seen like dedicated, uh, gov tech programs or units in the UK, in Poland, uh, in the Netherlands and Belgium in Luxembourg, Lithuania, Scotland, Israel. And, and what's really great actually is that some of those examples are not, uh, you know, traditionally seen as leaders in digital government or in government efficiency. Uh, but really, um, they've kind of shown that with enough, enough kind of will and, and desire and impetus around new technologies, Um, some of those I just mentioned really now are kind of world leaders in, in using innovative technology and public services.
Johnny: (18:45)
On the one hand, like really lots of really positive progress, um, some amazing case studies especially have emerged over the past. Um, uh, the past kind of 20 months, um, sectors that were just completely not digitized before often by complete requirement had to move to full digitalization. If I reflect on the overall state of gov tech maturity, I think we probably do have to be realistic and say that it's still quite early. We did a bit of analysis and, and think that the sort of total addressable market for gov tech in Europe is about 115 billion euros. If we think about the kind of spend on digital services that that could go towards innovative technology, uh, projects, providers, and partnerships. Uh, and if I, if I really reflect on it, of that kind of 115 billion euro opportunity, um, we are, we're certainly not most of the way there. Um, so my diagnosis would be, um, some extremely positive stuff,as I said especially in some, uh, surprising geographies around the world. Um, some amazing case studies that we can all point to, and definitely some areas of real, um, you know, not only just digitalization, but real transformation of public services, uh, but in lots of areas, government still is, is, is one of the sectors that has been the slowest to kind of transform, uh, based on citizen's expectations. And, um, we're confident that that is a, a journey that is a slow one, but it's is certainly happening.
Lindsay: (20:03)
What do you think gov tech is going to look like say five years from now?
Johnny: (20:08)
We've got 10 predictions for the future of the sector, which are things that we've seen kind of data trends and evidence for, but actually really are things that we've kind of lived in the same way that I'm sure at Govlaunch, when you think about the future, there are things that you've really kind of seen, uh, day in, day out. Um, I'll touch on a couple here that, um, may be particularly interesting. I think first is that the remit of government digital services is increasing and the space and scope of areas where government is thinking about and investing in technology is increasing. Um, we've got a couple of examples across Europe.
Johnny: (20:38)
I mean, the first is obviously in the sustainability and climate change space. We've seen a pretty substantial and significant shift in attitude towards funding and giving contracts to some of these kind of, uh, cutting edge technologies. Uh, and we've seen a similar actually in the, in the online safety space. So European governments are coming kind of increasingly concerned with how we keep, uh, users of the internet safe from different types of online harms and threats, especially vulnerable and younger users. And again, that is, you know, really traditionally seen as a private sector, uh, consideration and one that relates to investment in private enterprise. But I think that the nature and scope of different threats and requirements relating to public services changes, we'll see, uh, a new wave of government investing in different areas. So the thing that I would say to, to start ups and companies is to really think about some of these areas where you are starting to see that government is taking them more seriously and more as their sort of responsibility, because there'll be some amazing service opportunities there. Um, and then I think the second is that, um, there is going to have to be a sort of pretty fundamental review of, of how citizen, uh, and use the data is used in empowering this kind of new generation of public services. Um, one thing we've seen is that there's actually quite big national, uh, international, uh, differences between different countries with respect to how comfortable they are with governments using their data.
Johnny: (21:57)
Um, some are very comfortable with it. Some are comfortable with it in certain circumstances. I think there's going to have to be a pretty fundamental, uh, both kind of conversation and set of solutions to addressing this problem because really, you know, smart joined up government with, with, uh, seamless services does, does rely on a proper effective sharing of citizen data. And there are so many thorny questions tied into that, including, uh, you know, a single digital identification for citizens, a kind of joined up government style accounts, how the, the backends, uh, data systems between different government departments works. Um, and I think that is going to have to be a sort of major priority for, for the gov tech transformation around the world is, is how we tackle that big thorny question of, of using processing and sharing data in a, in a safe way, but also in a way where citizens feel that they have a, a certain level of control and consent.
Lindsay: (22:49)
Johnny for our listeners who wanted to take a deeper dive into the future of gov tech does public have any resources available?
Johnny: (22:58)
Uh, yes we do. So we're launching a new report at the gov tech summit, uh, on the 13th of October, which is looking at the state of gov tech in Europe in 2021, uh, and is actually making comparisons to, uh, Singapore, the USA and other kind of global leaders, as we, as we look at kind of European benchmarking. We reflect on the question that actually we started with today's like, what is gov tech, uh, which probably feel is quite different when we first tried to kind of define it and, and companies and players that you have have been, uh, contributing to those efforts over the past four years. And I think now we're at a kind of maturity that we felt it was worth taking stock and, and, and seeing, um, where the sector is.
Johnny: (23:34)
As part of that, as I said, we made some predictions as to what we think is going to happen in the future of the sector. Um, they are both informed by our personal experience, but also likely sort of shaped and biased by them. So they don't represent the entire canon of what's going to happen in gov tech, but things that we really have seen on the ground and which we expect to continue to see, uh, across different European governments. Um, and then more importantly the govtech summit itself, I think, um, really always tries to take a kind of future focused view. Um, and, and in many ways there's nothing better than, than hearing from the leaders themselves. Um, especially in so many different geographies with so many different perspectives across, uh, every service area. Um, what's going to happen next in the sector.
Edd: (24:14)
So to, to elaborate on Johnny's answer, the gov tech summit will take place on the 13th and 14th of October. It's like a hybrid event, so there will be some sessions. Uh in-person um, but also all of it will be streamed, um, online, so available for anyone to join, uh, virtually if they would like to. Um, and the real kind of aim of the tech summit, um, is to provide a forum or a place to discuss what the future public services should be enabled by technology. Um, and really trying to bring together all the different stakeholders who would be involved in that conversation from, um, obviously sort of policymakers, but also people who implement and deliver services, um, within governments, um, you know, technology providers and in particular, on, on entrepreneurs and fostering startups who really sort of thinking through what the future might look like
Edd: (25:11)
What's always been quite unique about the gov tech summit or what we try to create is, um, what we often think of as sort of a stage where, or a fairly unique stage where you can have someone who could quite literally be the head of a state or a head of government, um, alongside, you know, a leading entrepreneur who may be creating a company, um, that will be, you know, a unicorn in five years time or three or four years time. There are very few places that you can go to have that level of conversation when it comes to what should we be doing to reduce pollution in cities? You know, how should we be thinking about transport and, uh, you know, making transport, public transport efficient in cities? These sort of conversations, um, uh, really what we're trying to create through the gov tech tech summit, as well as the networks that will hopefully then on and go, go on and try and create some of that change.
Lindsay: (26:03)
In closing, can each of you share one final sentiment or bit of advice for our listeners? Something we haven't touched on already would be great.
Johnny: (26:13)
I think my final, uh, first sentiment and a piece of advice is that, uh, the biggest problem, um, in, in solving so many of these, this, this kind of gov tech opportunity is, is properly aligning all of the stakeholders. I really, um, think that, that startups often struggle to find the right touch point. They really struggle often to understand what governments want and then likewise government really often struggles to properly communicate what it wants. So the thing I would encourage is that both sectors should really, uh, understand the opportunity provided by each side. Um, and then for startups, um, try and understand deeply and engage deeply with what government needs. Make sure you're solving a real problem. Um, and then same for government, make sure that you're communicating your problems so that, um, the real innovators and entrepreneurs and problem-solvers can, um, can do their magic.
Edd: (27:02)
I would completely agree. And maybe to add to that as well. Um, one of the, the kind of new initiatives were trying to pioneer at PUBLIC is, is a, um, like a new institution that we call the, the public school of technology, um, which is trying to provide civil servants often non-technical civil servants with a kind of introduction to digital technology and to digital skills. Um, largely because we think having looked at other sectors that the way in which, um, service provision is evolving and quality service provision requires more so than ever before individuals who oversee, um, different parts of service provision to have a really strong understanding of, of technology and how it's implemented. And that also will require a pretty good understanding of how to procure technology, a pretty good understanding of how to manage systems and data in a safe and secure way. And that actually the evolution of the way in which training is provided in government, hasn't evolved often to support individuals in government to, to go through some of these, these jumps and these hurdles.
Edd: (28:08)
What I'm really passionate about is, is starting to think through, um, how can we really support civil servants on that journey towards really uncomfortable, um, using new technology in their services, or evaluating risk from a point of view of knowledge, um, and you know, what are the courses or what is the best provision we can give to civil servants? So embarking on that journey.
Lindsay: (28:32)
Well, we're so excited to be on this journey with you. Thank you both for being here and for your work in the space. Um, you've shared some really valuable insights on behalf of PUBLIC with the wider community of local governments globally. So we're really excited about your 2021 gov tech summit next week. Again, if you're interested in registering for that, you can do so at govtechsummit.eu and the state of gov tech report that Johnny mentioned can be found on PUBLIC's website. It'll go live October 13th. So thank you again, Edd and Johnny.
Johnny: (29:03)
Thanks for your time, Lindsay.
Edd: (29:04)
Thanks Lindsay.
Lindsay: (29:13)
I'm Lindsay Pica-Alfano and this podcast was produced by Govlaunch, the Wiki for local government innovation. You can subscribe to hear more stories like this, wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a local government innovator, we hope you'll help us on our mission to build the largest free resource for local governments globally. You can join to search and contribute to the wiki at govlaunch.com. Thanks for tuning in. We hope to see you next time on the Govlaunch podcast.