How can we create a more digital government?

Talking About a More Digital Government

Summary:
Matt Sawkill, Managing Director of Code for Australia and Jithma Beneragama Executive Director of Digital Design and Innovation at the Department of Premier and Cabinet explore what civic tech is, what makes a digitally mature government and tell us about some great initiatives happening around Australia.
Transcript:
A full transcript of this episode is available here.
Key takeaways:
“When you're talking about change and you're talking about re-imagining processes and products, the technology is the easy part of that and there's always a huge amount of effort to get the organisation to have an aligned point of view about what the problem is and what a solution might be.”

“You need to make sure that you have the right capability within the organisation and that the organisation itself is at a point in time and has the mindset around change and being able to accept change”

“The more decisions you make before you have a team on the ground building software, the greater the chances are that you're building the wrong software”

“That whole framing, that there's an idea of a non-technical person is, you know, it's something we really challenge.”

“People tend to work in the public sector because they want to make impact and they want to do something that's beneficial for society”

"The biggest barriers to doing digital well happen before the tech team is on the ground."

Resources mentioned:
Read more about digital transformation on Code for Australia’s blog
Join Code for Australia’s Slack channel
Tech For Non Tech training
Get involved in Civic Makers
Single Digital Presence
Vic Gov API
Engage Victoria
Human-centred Design Playbook
Digital Victoria

Credits and thank yous:
The show is hosted by Esther Semo and Sean Hua. Consulting producer is Daniel Semo. Podcast artwork designed by Nigel Moyes with illustrations by Indah Ibrahim.

This episode is brought to you by Code for Australia
Code for Australia are a not-for-profit organisation, working in collaboration with public sector teams and the tech community to help create a world class digital government. To find out more about Code for Australia head here

Want to be a guest on this podcast?
We’re always looking for folks working in civic tech and government to speak with about themes you're encountering or work being done. If you’re keen to have a chat to us contact us at [email protected]