In this episode, Jean Barroca (Global Digital Modernisation Leader, Government & Public Services, Deloitte) is joined by Beena Ammanath (Global Executive Director, Deloitte AI Institute) to discuss how AI can transform governments and how imperative regulation, ethics and trust are in the successful adoption of AI within the public sector.

This insightful conversation addresses the role governments play in accelerating the adoption of trustworthy AI, through the development of regulations that guide human-centric, inclusive and ethical AI across all industries. During the discussion, Beena highlights there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to regulating AI as regulations should be determined by individual use cases, industries and the geographies that the technology is used in. Furthermore, new regulations can be built upon existing guidelines – extending their application to cover ethical gaps that may arise in new industries. She also points out the challenge of regulating AI due to its rapid development and highlights the need for organisations to proactively self-regulate to ensure its ethical use. Jean and Beena agree on the importance of raising awareness about AI to ensure that stakeholders can make informed decisions on its acceptable risks and identify how to fully leverage its potential. In an ideal scenario of AI usage in governments: all citizens would have basic AI fluency and government employees would be fully aware of the implications of the AI tools they use. All-in-all, while AI has the power to shape a new generation of government and refine public service delivery, this transformation needs to be accompanied by a continuous and informed ethical discussion, to ensure that it drives equality and improves the lives of citizens.

Speakers

Beena Ammanath

Global Executive Director

Deloitte AI Institute

Jean Barroca

Global Government & Public Services Digital Modernisation Leader

Deloitte

The inaugural episode of the Connected Government Series aired on 9 March 2022. This thought-provoking discussion focussed on the role of cloud technology in the EU Government’s digital modernisation, covering how this technology can effectively bring positive change to the lives of citizens.

Key Takeaways

In his keynote presentation, Manuel Mateo Goyet–the Deputy Head of the Cloud and Software unit at DG CONNECT– addressed the topic of cloud technology from the European Commission’s perspective. He highlighted that market trends, such as the lack of large-scale European cloud offerings, are delaying cloud adoption within EU governments.

European Commission’s action toward a cloud-enabled Europe, which began in 2014 with a “cloud-first” principle, has now evolved into an all-encompassing data strategy, complemented by the 2030 Digital Compass objectives. While the cloud market is fairly complicated, creating the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud, and an informal Member States Cloud Cooperation Group are two key actions, the European Commission is taking to streamline cloud adoption across European public entities.

While the experiences vary from country to country, the panel unanimously agreed that technological cloud readiness and talent acquisition are the major challenges for cloud adoption in Europe. From a technological perspective, non-native cloud systems often translate into not only a lack of capacity but also an overall difficult technical transition to cloud-enabled solutions. By the same token, the search for talent tends to hinder the process, as both attracting and retaining qualified professionals in tech in the public sector is a herculean task in today’s hyper-competitive labour market. All-in-all, panelists agreed that moving to a “thinking cloud” mindset and assessing the appropriateness of cloud solutions on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to approaching the change from a “cloud-first” perspective can be the key to a big paradigm shift for cloud in governments across Europe.

The regulatory specificities in Europe, namely the security concerns and GDPR, yet another transversal challenge of the journey to the cloud, were also a central theme of the discussion. Panellists emphasised that moving forward vendors should adapt to the EU regulatory reality, agreeing that data sovereignty—although a concern—is not a blockage to cloud initiatives in Europe as much as it is a limitation for implementation. Taking this into account, European Governments should, nonetheless, focus on understanding true data security and risk to evaluate the implication.

Speakers

Deborah Sills

Global Consulting Government & Public Services Leader

Deloitte

Manuel Mateo Goyet

Deputy Head of Unit for Cloud and Software

European Commission – DG CONNECT

Carsten Nørgaard Laugesen

Chief Information Officer / Vice President

Capital Region, Denmark

Lourens Visser

Chief Information Officer

Dutch Central Government, The Netherlands

Siim Sikkut

Former Chief Information Officer

Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, Estonia

Jean Barroca

Global Government & Public Services Digital Modernisation Leader

Deloitte