CAF and IE to Drive Digital Innovation in Latin America Public Sector

CAF—development bank of Latin America—and IE PublicTech Lab of IE School of Global & Public Affairs, an institution of IE University, have signed an agreement to drive the development of a GovTech ecosystem and support technological entrepreneurship in an effort to streamline digital transformation in governments and public institutions in Ibero-America

With the agreement, the two organizations will encourage entrepreneurship with a focus on finding innovative solutions to the challenges facing institutions, thereby helping streamline processes and drive transformation of public management.

“In Latin America, GovTech start-ups can play a pivotal role in the digital transformation of governments in an attempt to improve their innovation capacities and agility, not as competitors of great government technology, but rather to improve it. GovTech is an ecosystem in which small tech-based businesses and government agencies interact and collaborate to devise new solutions to improve policy design and service delivery, based on data intelligence and new technologies,” said Carlos Santiso, Director of Digital Innovation of the State at CAF.

In addition, Idoia Ortiz de Antiñano, director of PublicTech Lab of IE School of Global & Public Affairs noted that “entrepreneurs are developing technological projects with a high social impact: from solutions to provide services to the ageing population to data platforms to inform about public decisions or participation and social organization channels.” “These innovative projects promote democratization and enable equal access to services of high social value,” Ortiz de Antiñano added.

The agreement will also reinforce specific cooperation on digital innovation agenda of governments and GovTech ecosystems in Latin America and Europe. In this sense, the agreement provides for sectoral diagnostics, organization of events, workshops and trainings, a communication campaign, among other activities.