A preliminary look at the 2019 agenda

From our first FWD50, we’ve taken a content-focused approach to conferences. That means experts from around the world, topics taken from today’s biggest headlines and thorniest challenges. It means long-form workshops and breakouts. And it takes the support of partners who believe that what’s needed isn’t sales pitches, but rather a better understanding of digital transformation; a global lineup that attracts government decision-makers; and ultimately, more successful projects delivered sooner.

For nearly a year, we’ve been hard at work on the 2019 lineup. We know (and from our survey, you’ve told us) that we’re past the Kool-Aid stage of digital government — and that change, not tech, is the hard part.

Photo by pixpoetry on Unsplash.

Some of the changes we’re making include:

• Transforming our stages into beginner, intermediate, and advanced tracks.
• Bringing back Circlesquare with new topics, from clouds and open compute to climate, emergency management, finance, regulation, and information management.
• Adding workshops in the adjacent Horticultural Building throughout the week.

Here’s a more detailed look at who’s speaking, what we’re covering, and how it dovetails with public policy initiatives and government mandates. This will help you plan your FWD50 program and make the most of our content.

This is last year’s agenda. We’re changing things up a bit with new space and new tracks for 2019.

Our 2019 Faculty

Our current list of confirmed speakers is on the FWD50 website. We’re still adding others, and hundreds of you have proposed talks through our Call for Proposals already. Just a few of the folks taking the stage from around the world include:

• Afua Bruce, the Director of Engineering for Public Interest Technology at New America.
• Alasdair Allan, a mischievous expert on the Internet of Things and security.
• Ella Mae Lewis, Director of product at Apolitical.
• Malka Older, author of the science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy and an Associated Researcher at the Center for Sociology of Organizations, Sciences Po.
• Rainhard Fuchs, handling International Relations in the Austrian Digitalisation Agency.
• Yantisa Akhadi, who runs Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in Indonesia.
• And returning favorites including David Eaves (Harvard Kennedy School), Pia Waugh (government of New South Wales and New Zealand), Alex Howard, and Kristo Vaher (CTO of Estonia.)

Yes, you should be this happy about the speakers coming to Ottawa in November. We are!

We can’t tell you all of the folks who are participating because, among other things, Canada’s in the middle of a Federal Election, and there are prohibitions on anything that might seem like endorsement or sponsorship. So we’ll continue to update things in the coming weeks.

Alignment with government initiatives

Within Canada, various departments — from Shared Services, to the Treasury Board Secretariat, to the Canada School of Public Service — have mandates that spell out their goals and objectives. In an era of rapid technological change, many of these mandates focus on digital transformation. We read through them (it took a while.) The initiatives include:

• Improving digital literacy among marginalized populations.
• Delivering better IT Service Management.
• Modernizing digital infrastructure.
• Offering alternate service delivery models (voice, chatbot, etc.)
• Migrating to on-demand cloud services.
• Strengthening Cyber and IT security.
• Workforce automation, recruiting, training, and well-being.
• Increasing the availability and quality of information throughout government.
• IT procurement modernization.
• AI and technology governance.
• Service-centric delivery of government programs.
• Digital governance, accountability, and oversight.

The list mirrors many of the initiatives and priorities of governments around the world, particularly the members of the Digital 9 nations. Based on this list, and feedback from governments and advisors around the world, we’ve selected a number of topics that align FWD50 content with government mandates.

Key topics this year

Digital government is legion, with its light touching every facet of public service. While FWD50’s content is far-reaching, we’re giving particular focus to some specific initiatives that line up with policy commitments in Canada and beyond. Here’s some of the content aimed at these initiatives:

Cloud migration

• We have a cloud migration workshop, taught by experts in the field of cloud deployment. Among them, Shlomo Swidler has built several planet-scale cloud environments for providers like Korea Telecom.
• We also have a Circlesquare tech corner devoted to cloud computing.

AI governance and responsible use

• Alasdair Allan has been researching AI on local platforms (like Arduino) because machine learning on small local footprints is critical for privacy.
• Ramy Nassar is teaching a workshop on AI and design thinking.
• Jerry Overton is teaching a workshop on AI, Sustainability, and Ethics, with a specific focus on energy and resource management.
• We have a Circlesquare tech corner on AI and big data.

Employee training and skills improvement

• We have workshops on writing effective IT policies.
• The CSPS, CDS, and Code for Canada are all working with us on content and training for government employees.
• Our Regional Government Summit, chaired by the digital ministers of Quebec, Georgia, and Ontario, is bringing a new segment of government to the event.
• Malka Older, author of Infomocracy, is speaking about how to envision better futures.
• Afua Bruce is talking about change management in government.
• Rainhard Fuchs is speaking about how to continue service delivery in a time of political upheaval.
• Janice Cudlip and Ella Mae Lewis are talking about Apolitical and the GCCollab integration.

Cybersecurity

• Alasdair Allan is one of the world’s leading authorities on cybersecurity and the Internet of Things.

Agile, iterative project management

• Pia (Waugh) Andrews is returning to talk about her work building iterative government services.

Regulatory management and compliance

• The Canadian Federation of Regulators is running an event alongside ours, and many of them will be participating in FWD50.
• We also have a Circlesquare domain focused on regulation and compliance.

Big Data

• We have a Circlesquare corner on Big Data and AI.
• We’ll be running a discussion on public/private data and smart cities, and the tradeoffs citizens and regulators need to make, moderated by Alex Howard.
• We’re partnering with ARMA on meetups and content related to information and records management.

Climate and environment

• Sensors is one of the four Circlesquare tech corners.
• Eyal Feder-Levy of Zencity is explaining how to measure citizen happiness and good outcomes like sustainability alongside “hard” metrics like air quality or congestion.

Disaster management and emergency response

• We’re doing a workshop on disaster readiness with Blackberry (their Adhoc product is used for emergency messaging), Jesse Robbins (once the “Master of Disaster” at Amazon,) and Ramona McVicker from FIT and CRHNet. It’s aimed at emergency readiness.
• Humanitarian Openstreetmaps uses its mapping data to improve readiness in emergencies, and is giving a talk on their work.

Open compute stacks and digital sovereignty

• Open Source isn’t enough. We have folks from open source companies (Margaret Dawson) as well as open data organizations (Openstreetmap, Wikimedia, Commoncrawl, Opencorporates) to talk about a completely open stack that encourages data sovereignty.
• Shu Yang Lin from Taiwan is speaking about building open government from within the government.

Accessibility and adoption by marginalized populations

• Lia Milito from Code for Canada is running a class on how to test usability for populations different from yourself.

Transparent reporting and financial management

• Annette Hester is reporting on her work building data visualizations and digital innovation projects at the National Energy Board.
• Cathy Barerra is talking about Blockchain as the enabler for shared databases, and how this solves the ‘hold-up problem’ between public and private sector.
• Finance and spending is one of the four Circlesquare domains.

Putting together a compelling lineup is a mix of art and science. We’ve taken our lead from both survey feedback and government initiatives in Canada and elsewhere, then tried to find fascinating voices that don’t take the stage in Ottawa often. The result is a packed three days of digital government content that goes beyond introductions, into hard lessons and workshops with immediately usable tools.

We hope you join us; tickets are available on our website. And of course, if you want to partner, volunteer, sponsor, cover the event, or otherwise get involved, please let us know!