GovTech News

Government focused technology company PUBLIC announced the winner and runner’s up of recently launched “GovTech Awards”. GovTech Lab Lithuania was announced as one of the three finalists.

Driven by a mission to recognise the ecosystem supporting leading technological innovators and global policymakers, applications for The GovTech Awards were opened in July by PUBLIC to shine a spotlight on some of the most dynamic projects supporting GovTech innovation around the world.

As a first-of-its-kind initiative, the GovTech Awards aim to celebrate the international community of organisations working towards the common goal of supporting GovTech Innovation, encouraging applications from projects that facilitate GovTech entrepreneurship, support innovative procurement, and convene GovTech communities.

This year’s nominations for the GovTech Awards represented over 64 initiatives from across 17 countries. The three finalists illustrate just how far the GovTech ecosystem has grown globally, and how diverse approaches to encouraging entrepreneurship, improving procurement, and convening communities can succeed in different contexts.

The first of the three finalists announced was GovTech Lab Lithuania, a government body under the Innovation Agency Lithuania focused on encouraging the creation and use of innovative solutions for the government. GovTech Lab Lithuania were selected for their ‘GovTech Challenge Series’, a project designed to solve complex public sector challenges that don’t have a clear answer but the potential to foster a creation of innovative digital solutions. Their approach differs from the traditional procurement process as it focuses on piloting solutions before proceeding to full scale implementation. Judges were particularly impressed by their commitment to giving the Lithuanian public sector a structured and improved approach to innovation.

The second of the three finalists announced was Interamerican Development Bank’s GovTech Lab Latin America, an open innovation project that brings new digital solutions to the great challenges of the participating municipalities. The project articulates the GovTech ecosystem of Latin America, making visible the potential of entrepreneurial companies that, based on technology and data, generate new solutions capable of impact at scale. The project is at a relatively early stage to the other two finalists, however the judging panel identified a strong foundation for future success through the collaboration secured with the IDB Cities Network and the IE PublicTech Lab.

The third finalists, BrazilLAB were announced as the winners of the inaugural GovTech Awards. Motivated by a mission to restore trust in the public sector after challenges to the integrity of Brazil’s public spending, the GovTech Startup Acceleration Program was the first of its kind in Latin America to connect startups with public leaders. The judges made the decision to award them the ‘Excellence in Supporting GovTech Innovation’ trophy based on their clear mission and civil society-led approach, which allowed for continuity despite changes in public sector
political leadership.

“GovTech is on the march. Our GovTech Awards finalists illustrate the sector’s growing scale and diversity, varying in their regions of activity, organizational forms, and approaches to catalyzing GovTech innovation. They demonstrate the formidable innovative capacity of the public and third sector, and show that there’s no “one size fits all” in supporting GovTech ecosystems. The Jury was impressed not only by BrazilLab’s ability to serve as a trusted intermediary between public and private sector across many levels of government and domains, but also their commitment to helping startups scale across Brazil,” said Fil Lekkas, Head of International Growth and Ventures Strategy at PUBLIC, and member of the Jury.