On the 25th of May, the GovTech4all GovTech Incubator was launched at the 2023 Digital Government Summit. Next to the participants of the GovTech4all, the ceremony was attended by two special guests: Ukranian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and European Commissioner for Budget and Administrations Johannes Hahn.
The Incubator, for which Interoperable Europe made a call for proposals previous year, is co-financed by the DIGITAL Europe programme, and will start with a 4-year period in which new common digital future solutions will be developed to innovate the way governments deliver services to citizens.
In total, 21 organisations from 14 European countries participate in the GovTech Incubator, the majority of them innovative agencies and digital-government institutions.
Three cross-border pilots of Govtech4all are already in the running for the first two years (2023-2025) for a total amount of €6 million, of which 50% is financed with the Interoperable Europe budget.
Ukraine’s groundbreaking e-government platform
The Ukranian Ministry of Innovation will also participate in GovTech4All. Vice Prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov - who is responsible for innovation, development of education, science and technologies, and for digital transformation – attended the Digital Government Summit in person.
Before the ceremony, Vice Prime Minister Federov opened the Summit by giving an account about how Ukraine’s groundbreaking e-government platform Diia, helps Ukranian citizens to overcome many of the challenges imposed on them by the war.
The platform (that was already launched in 2019 in the form of an app and a web portal) gives Ukrainians access to tens of digital government services. Among these many services are the delivering of evacuation documents, the delivering of financial aid for small businesses (e-aid), an app to alert enemy movements (e-enemy), the option for Ukranian families to request mortgages, and services to increase cybersecurity and tackle corruption.
Diia also enables Ukranian citizens (even when under occupied territory) to follow Ukranian and international radio and television channels. This way, over tens of thousand citizens listen to the radio on a daily basis and more than 1 million Ukranians were able to watch the Eurovision Song Contest and the FIFA World Cup in 2022.
The Interoperable Europe Act as a game changer
After his presentation, Vice-Prime Minister Federov received a standing ovation from the crowd. Also, European Commissioner Hahn (Budget and Administrations) congratuled Federov and the Ukranian people for their achievements in the very difficult circumstances they have to live in.
“What you have shown us today is another proof that Ukraine is already on the right path towards European Membership”, the Commissioner stated. “We also want to work together on the IT-side, because what we just have seen now, is what should be available everywhere. We should be interconnected the way Europe should be united in diversity. This is only possible if we apply much more interoperable solutions.”
Not much later, Commissioner Hahn stressed again the fundamental contribution of interoperability in overcoming Europe’s internal technical borders and to have more interconnected public services: “The demand for cross-border digital public services is increasing. For citizens, they facilitate living, studying and working in other countries. For businesses, they significantly reduce the burden when dealing with different administrative systems of the Member States.”
Nevertheless, the Commissioner noted that much work is yet to be done. “While we see an increasing number of success stories already, in practice only a fraction of digital public services is available for cross-border use. This is why the European Commission proposed the Interoperable Europe Act, to help the Union and Member States design seamless cross-border key public services to citizens and businesses. The Act is a game changer."
More info about the participants and the participant countries in GovTech4All can be found in the press release of the Lisbon Council.