The World Economic Forum, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Eastern Europe Foundation will open the worldʼs second GovTech Center (GGTC Kyiv) in Kyiv. It will promote international cooperation on issues of digital innovation in the public sector, and will actually become a platform for popularizing the Ukrainian digitalization experience at the global level.
This was reported by the press service of the World Economic Forum.
The Kyiv GovTech Center will become part of the World Economic Forumʼs Center for Analysis and Coordination of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) network and only the second center in the world to focus on government technologies. The first such opened in the German capital Berlin in January 2024.
The Ukrainian Center will bring together representatives of the government, business, public, and academic circles to cooperate in the field of digital reforms.
"The center in Ukraine will contribute to our global efforts aimed at unlocking the significant potential of digital technologies to improve public services and create new values. The center will act as a catalyst for cooperation between the public and private sectors, promoting digital development and innovation at such a critical time for Ukraine and Europe," said Executive Director of the World Economic Forum Mirek Duszek.
As noted in the World Economic Forum, Ukraine has become a world leader in the field of state digital technologies in recent years, so its experience will be useful for other countries.
"In 2019, we started building a digital state literally from scratch, and today Ukraine will become the second country in the world to host the Global Government Technology Center. This is not a coincidence. We have created one of the best technology solutions for government, the Action app. It is great that international partners, in particular the team of the World Economic Forum, consider "Diya" as a case study, and the experience of digital transformation of Ukraine as an example for other countries," said Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov.
The opening of the GovTech center in Kyiv was officially signed on the sidelines of the Diia Summit event in Zurich. This event is aimed at demonstrating the results of the reforms of the Ministry of Digital and how international cooperation, in particular with Swiss partners, contributed to these achievements.
This is the third time that "Diya" has held such an international event of applications for the provision of public services. In 2022, such an event took place in Davos in Switzerland, in 2023 in Washington, and this year in Zurich.
"Such joint presentations with donors show our transparency and accountability, and this allows us to attract additional resources for the development of the digital state," Fedorov said.
This year, in January, at a meeting in Davos, Ukraine and Switzerland agreed on cooperation in the field of digital transformation. The opening of the GovTech center in Kyiv is part of the letter of intent signed by both parties at the time.
The Center for Analysis and Coordination of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a platform for collaboration that brings together the public and private sectors to develop technological benefits for society while minimizing risks.
In 2017, the World Economic Forum opened the first Center for the Analysis and Coordination of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the American San Francisco (California), and soon centers appeared in Japan and India.
The network now includes centers in Austin (Texas, USA), Detroit (Michigan, USA), Azerbaijan, Germany, Israel, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, the Indian state of Telangana, the UAE, Vietnam, and now in Ukraine.