Buzzing in Berlin at the Creative Bureaucracy Festival
The Creative Bureaucracy Festival was a truly inspiring event in Berlin on 2nd June 2022. Billed as the place “where administrative talents from around the world learn from and inspire each other”, Eva Sonnenmoser (InnoLabBW Staatsministerium Baden-Württemberg) and Alexander Holt (The Scottish Government) represented The GovTech Global Alliance on the mainstage with a talk on “Innovation diplomacy : building cross-border relations through #climatetech solutions. This was the story behind our groundbreaking COP26 Global Scale Up Programme.
In a session entitled: The Visionary Bureaucracy: Boring, Female, Expansive, Cross-Border, we were delighted to present alongside Indy Johar, Christian Bason, and Djuna Bernard (LX) - Green Minister, Luxembourg who gave an excellent speech about getting more young females involved in politics
As Europe’s largest public sector innovation festival, there was a great atmosphere in the packed out main 450 auditorium. Our thanks to Charles Landry and Robyn Bennett for staging a brilliant event.
In the process of selection (we were one of three selected from nearly 200 applications), we had had to put together a video outlining our session. Aron Hausler (South Australia, Go2Gov) Sylvia Romanelli (IIPP) joined in telling the story. It looked a bit ropey to be fair as both Aron and Alexander had Covid at the time. And as ever, our journey couldn’t be without our friends across the world - government innovators and climate tech pioneers.
The value in participation was huge:
Leadership – We demonstrated leadership in govtech/innovation to a global audience.
Exposure - It is the largest event on public sector innovation in the world. The GovTech Global Alliance was selected as one of three successful applicants from 200 to present their programme on the main stage. The main 400+ auditorium was at capacity with a number of other rooms well-attended.
Network – with some of the world’s most innovative organisations on location, this was a great opportunity to represent our respective Governments in front of / meet international KOLs. It added to our global perspective on what is working (or not) in innovation and develops an international network gateway for domestic policy and delivery actors to learn and share, so that our strategies and services can be the best they can be.
Relationship building – presentation with Eva Sonnenmoser from InnoLab Baden Wurttemberg – we can point to this presentation as an example of collaboration under the newly signed MoU between Scotland and BW. Eva did brilliantly on stage given it was her second language and she’s not had a lot of experience presenting, so in terms of professional development for her as a member of the GovTech Global Alliance this was a milestone. It was great to meet the likes of Charles Landry (Founder of CBF), Indy Johar (UK) (Executive Director, Dark Matters Lab), Christian Bason (DK) - Danish Design Centre, Rainer Kattel - UCL IIPP (works with Marianna Mazzucato) Lisa Witter – CEO / Co-founder apolitical as well as members of various government digital teams.