In search for co-creators 30 years ago and now: Lithuania’s approach to government’s digital transformation
Thirty years ago, Lithuania has announced a vision “Lithuania 2000”. Years before the trends of co-creation picked up in other countries, “Lithuania 2000” invited world’s largest tech companies to join forces in developing Lithuania’s public sector services and its IT infrastructure. Today, Lithuania already has a strong digital foundation. But the pace of technological innovation and the needs of citizens are rapidly changing.
The public sector is in need for the new digital transformation. Yet, in Lithuania, the approach and core values remain the same – co-creation. New group of co-creators and partners have emerged – startups and innovative companies. Building on successful track record, Lithuania has launched a new initiative in 2021 to enable this trend – funded GovTech Sandbox.
GovTech transformation in Lithuania
Over the last couple of years Lithuania’s government initiated new programmes to make sure that innovation reaches the public sector. In 2019, GovTech Lab was set up in the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology, to help the public sector institutions and innovative companies work together. They are running structured programmes that facilitate co-creation of digital solutions for public sector challenges. “Over the past few years, the GovTech Lab has helped solve about 60 challenges faced by our country’s institutions, while helping more than 500 public sector employees deepen their knowledge in the field of innovation. Lithuania’s latest endeavour to confirm its trend-setting role in the GovTech space – launch of a new funded GovTech sandbox,” said Arūnė Matelytė, Manager of the GovTech Lab.
This year, GovTech sandbox enabled public sector entities to pilot around 40 GovTech solutions via an innovative procurement method – design contest. Startups and innovative companies received monetary prizes and contracts of up to 53 thousand euros to develop each GovTech pilot. Many of these innovative solutions are expected to see the light of day by the end of the year, including a smart mental health assistant for the prevention of relapses designed by Dizaino Kryptis, an artificial intelligence-based model for forecasting events that require the intervention of the police force by Telesoftas, a tool for monitoring, analysing and evaluating the activities of Vilnius educational institutions created by Synopticom, a smart solution that will open the Panevėžys City industry to students and tourists developed by Iron Cat, and many other solutions.
In January, all public sector challenges, and solutions that participated in the programme, will be presented at a new GovTech report. Those who are eager to learn about GovTech solutions are welcome to view recordings of the online GovTech Demo Days events featuring presentations of some of GovTech’s latest solutions, conversations with change leaders, and a glimpse into the future of public sector digitisation and innovation. Event recordings are available on the GovTech Lab Lithuania YouTube channel.
Photo by Andrius Aleksandravičius
