How can governments unlock public value from digital transformation and harness the potential encapsulated in the internet and data for more equitable public services?

Part of the lecture series between between UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) and the British Library on Rethinking Public Value and Public Purpose in 21st Century Capitalism. This lecture explores questions such as how much and what kind of data should citizens own, and should we be able to earn from our data owned by private corporations?

After more than two decades of John Perry Barlow's declaration that the global cyberspace should be 'naturally independent of the tyrannies' of governments, it is in fact private business that has amassed enormous quantities of data and concentrated it into the hands of just a few companies. While global trade in data is larger than that in goods, there is nowhere near similar levels of activity between or within governments. Indeed, there is very little interoperability of data systems between countries, and often within countries. Documents signed electronically in one country are typically not recognised by other countries. As we travel, for example, data on our health stays locked at home making emergencies abroad cumbersome and expensive. 

This lecture will explore how governments can unlock public value from digital transformation and harness the potential encapsulated in the internet and data for more equitable public services. How much and what kind of data should citizens own, and should we be able to earn from our data owned by private corporations?

This event has taken place, but you can watch a video of the talk below.

Mike Bracken, founder of the UK's award winning Government Digital Service (and its digital platform gov.uk) and Rainer Kattel, UCL professor of Innovation and Public Governance, discuss the experiences of government digital transformation from around the world, specifically focusing on the UK and Estonia as paradigmatically diverging examples.

In association with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

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