Abstract: As GovTech solutions are steadily entering the public sector, they have yet to find their way into the mainstream literature. GovTech refers to socio-technical solutions – that are developed and operated by private organisations – intertwined with public sector components for facilitating processes in the public sector. GovTech solutions promise a superior customer journey for citizens and businesses compared to current government portals and front desks. GovTech solutions can be a blessing in disguise for governments struggling in their digital transformation journey, carrying the burden of public service innovation and replacing legacy systems with modern GovTech solutions. Yet, there are also concerns that GovTech solutions are a Trojan horse, exploiting the lack of technical knowledge at public agencies and shifting decision-making power from public agencies to market parties, thereby undermining digital sovereignty and public values. In this talk, we develop a research agenda for GovTech based on a conceptual framework. This framework reveals four interrelated design areas for GovTech: institutional, governance, technical and human-centred design. Governments can employ the conceptual framework to further align and develop their strategies by focussing on GovTech governance, referring to the ability to manage the various interdependencies between the four design areas.

Nitesh Bharosa. The Rise of GovTech: Trojan Horse or Blessing in Disguise? A Research Agenda. Government Information Quarterly, Volume 39, Issue 3, July 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2022.101692
https://digicampus.tech/

The Speaker: Dr. Nitesh Bharosa is Full professor of ‘GovTech and Innovation’ at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology. Nitesh has a track record in designing data infrastructures for public-private data sharing and leading data-driven government transformations. His current research focusses on designing and governing responsible GovTech – digital innovations for the public sector. Nitesh is also the academic director of Digicampus – a quadruple helix ecosystem for public service innovation. At Digicampus, public agencies, GovTech companies, research institutes, and citizen groups co-create and experiment with GovTech for exploring the next generation public services, using state of the art information technologies such as data wallets, cyber-trust services, digital twins and AI (www.digicampus.tech). By combining the role of professor and academic director, Nitesh aims to shorten the loop from science to societal impact. He is member of the editorial board of Government Information Quarterly and has published in several high-ranking journals, including Information Systems Frontiers, Decision Support Systems and the Journal of Cognition, Technology & Work.