Leveraging technology to make government services more accessible, efficient, and user-friendly for citizens

GovTecHH

GovTecHH is Germany’s first Public Venture Client Unit. The objective is to intensify cooperation between external innovators, especially startups, and the City of Hamburg focusing on the public sector. The project started in April 2022 and was funded for two years initially. 

Organisation: The GovTecHH unit is located at Hamburg’s government department for IT and Digitalisation which is part of the Senate Chancellery of Hamburg.

GovTechHH aims to leverage technology to make government services more accessible, efficient, and user-friendly for citizens. This includes initiatives such as digitising public services, creating online platforms for citizen engagement and participation, and using data analytics to inform policy decisions.

By adopting GovTechHH solutions, the government of Hamburg hopes to improve transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to the needs of its citizens. It also seeks to foster innovation and collaboration between the public and private sectors in order to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life for its residents.

GovTechHH represents a promising approach to modernising government services and creating more effective and responsive governance in the 21st century.

Project Model at a glance

Operational efforts and Responsibilities:

With the establishment of the GovTecHH unit in Hamburg, the focus is on:

  1. Testing and validating new technologies within the public administration to promote innovation (public venture client approach) 

  2. Gaining new impulses from startups for an innovative and agile work culture 

  3. Establishing a central contact point for startups that want to work with the administration and vice versa

Projects

Pilot Project SUMM: The press office of the Hamburg Senate was looking for a solution to more effectively translate their websites into easy language. GovTecHH connected the press office with the Startup SUMM that offers AI-based translation to easy language. It took 14 weeks to successfully start the pilot project in September 2022.


Tech4Hamburg Fellowship: As part of GovTecHH, we are organising a fellowship programme (Tech4Hamburg) with our public IT service provider Dataport. IT-Trainees will have three months to develop a prototype for the modernisation of Hamburg‘s commercial premises portal.


Event format‚ Verwaltung-trifft-Startups: Verwaltung-trifft-Startups‘ is an event format where three start-ups get invited to pitch their GovTech solution to employees of Hamburg's public sector. The objective is to get innovative ideas into the public administration and to broaden the perspective on cooperation with start-ups.

Location
Hamburg, Germany

Nature of programme or organisation
Public Venture Client Unit

Website
https://startupcity.hamburg/startups-ecosystem/govtechh