Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 02

March/April 2018 // Canadian Government Executive / 29 TECHGOV forum Richard Jones, Publisher of CGE. “The fo- cus was on how to strategically and seam- lessly link the worlds of open government, policy, and citizen-centred services while leveraging proven technologies.” The forum featured over 20 experts from both government and industry shar- ing talks on Digital Transformation, Open Government and Citizen Engagement, In- novation for Results, Service Delivery, and Technology, and Change Management. These pillars were discussed at great lengths, in various formats, including six keynotes, numerous interactive presenta- tions, case studies and plenary sessions. The highlight of the event included ad- dresses by the Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board and Mi- chael Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary of the Cabinet. Both leaders from government pointed out the need to innovate and transform faster to serve the needs of Canadians. Minister Brison talked about rethinking the transaction by focusing on the custom- er needs. He went on to add that govern- ments need to focus on outcomes for us- ers and less on processes and outputs. He elaborated on the needs and expectations of Canadians, for example, how we expect the same service when it comes to renew- ing our passports as when we conduct a transaction on Amazon. “Every time a citizen interacts with our government digitally ought to be an op- portunity to learn from them how we can serve them better,” the minister said. “That’s the basis of user-centric design.” He concluded by saying that govern- ment needs to put Canadians at the heart of service design and delivery. “They de- serve nothing less because a digital gov- ernment has little to do with technology and everything to do with the people us- ing it,” he said. Michael Wernick pointed out that dur- ing his long career he has seen various changes within digital government, from the advent of the first word processors, cell phones, fax machines, internet termi- nals, and then on to the arrival of cyber attacks and Twitter. These changes have increased the delivery of service and en- gagement with citizens. “Technological change is not new, but the challenge is to figure out what is differ- ent about this particular wave of techno- logical change,” Wernick said. Taking the lessons from the previous adoptions will help greatly “so that we don’t have to start from zero all the time.” He talked about the need for interopera- bility and mobility and of coming together more “as a single enterprise”. The apparent reason is service. “Canadians do not care which department or agency or sub-unit that they get service from; they just want the service,” he said. He explained that Canadians want a service that is seamless, available 24/7, on their portable devices, in both official languages, and in formats that are state-of-the-art for persons with disabilities. The other reason for working together is cybersecurity. “Canadians, rightly, will not tolerate breaches of sensitive government information or the information that gov- ernment holds about them, like their tax records, census filings, or corporate busi- ness information,” said the Secretary of the Cabinet. He went on to add that for innovation and technology to be adopted by govern- ment; it must work in two official languag- es, be fully accessible, and be secure. Attendees at the January 29-30 event heard keynote messages fromMarc Brouil- lard, Treasury Board of Canada Secretari- at; Jason Hermitage, Microsoft Canada; Dr. Julia Glidden, IBM; and Alex Miller, Esri Canada. Transforming cities, AI, cyber threats, community building policy, digital patient, trusted cloud, blockchain, the future of cit- izen services, the modern CG workplace, digital identity, and digital investments were some of the topics discussed over the two days. To see a full list of the speakers at TECH- GOV 2018, please refer to pages 30-31. Stay tuned for the next TECHGOV event that will be coming in early 2019. Photos: Some of the speakers at TechGov 2018. From Left to Right: Michael Wernick, Dr. Ted Scott, Dr. Julia Glidden, Rodney Ghali, Marc Brouillard, Jason Hermitage and Alex Miller. “Every time a citizen interacts with our government digitally ought to be an opportunity to learn from them how we can serve them better; that’s the basis of user-centric design.” – Minister Brison