IGF 2024-Day 0-Workshop room 3-Event #188 Top Business and Technology Trends in Government for 2024 -- RAW

The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

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>>  We're about to start.

    >>  One, one, one.

    >>  The best way -- best thing to be, you have to wear the

  headphones.

    Can you hear me?

    Perfect?  Good.  How about now?

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    Okay.  Excellent.

    >> FARES SHADAD:  Good morning everyone.

    Again, on behalf of the organizers, I would like to welcome you for

  this session today.  Where we're talking about the top business and

  technology trends in government.

    Okay.  2024, and probably 2025 as well it seems like it's -- it's

  trending on the same path.  All right?

    My name is Fares Shadad, I have the presenter in today's session.

  And I will be happy to walk you through few statistics.  Okay we have

  some trends that we see coming -- okay -- that already some of it took

  place and probably more to come.

    But let me ask you this.  I mean, usually I'd love to have a session

  to be more interactive.  Okay?

    I'd like to ask you a question, okay?

    Apparently it would be a rhetorical question because I would love to

  have -- I would love getting some feedback from you.  If the Jeanie

  just showed up, okay, and granted you swishes, but not three.  Only

  one.  Okay?

    One wish as granted, to wish for your government to give you

  something.  What is the service that you would require from your

  government that you feel that this is missing, that you will ask your

  government to have okay.

    I mean, for the audience who's here, would you like to share

  something?

    Innovation?  Okay.  Technological innovation, maybe?  To adopt more

  technology innovation than you're -- in the government, and the

  services that the government provides you; right?

    Okay.

    Focusing on security.  Amazing.  I mean, this is very good, 2 points

  to start with.  But we need to remember something very important.  The

  challenges that the government act -- okay?  I mean look no further, I

  mean, if you look around you, you see the challenges are taking place

  around us.

    Let's take a look at some of the things that we see around you.

  Global turmoil, cyber threats, regional conflicts, local pressures,

  increasing citizen demand.  This is some of the taxes that is taking

  our lives on a daily basis.  Do we agree to it?  We do.  It's all

  around us.  All right?

    One -- one -- I mean one pressure and one challenge that government

  sees nowadays is basically several challenges coming from everywhere.

  Okay?

    Not only from the external taxes that we see here, but sometimes it's

  the pressure of the citizens, as we said.  Citizens are asking for more

  products, more services.  They care about the quality of life.  And the

  government is sitting in -- to serve, to be able to accommodate what's

  outside, all the pressure that comes from the outer world and at the

  same time to accommodate the demand of the citizens all around.  So

  therefore, for today's presentation we're discussing the business side

  of the story and maybe the technical side of the story where are the

  trends, helping -- I mean trending and the tech challenges and what --

  I mean, what the governments are doing.  Okay?

    What are the governments are facing.

    One thing for a fact -- okay -- one of the biggest challenges that

  the government has, which is an internal challenge, is basically what

  we call in the world of IT is like assistance.  Okay?  Is like

  assistants, a concept that is familiar to you?  It's the old computer

  systems, because you have a lot of organizations, a lot of government

  organizations, militaries, honour -- see my government entities, they

  have been using RT for the longest time.  They invested so many money,

  time, resources into building their systems.  All of a sudden it became

  a legacy.  With a lot of challenges, a lot of demands on the services

  of the government.  So some of the systems that they have, it became

  some sort of old.  Needs to be updated.  All right?

    One of the biggest challenges that the government has today, how can

  we upgrade?  Okay?

    From our exposure to a lot of government entities all over the world,

  upgrading those legacy systems is not an easy task.  Luddite senses.

  Lucky for us we have a new technology today and we will talk more about

  today that probably will help us.

    All of us probably use by now -- I mean, in abundance, ChatGPT,

  right?  Okay.  ChatGPT is an application of AI.

    Think about it.

    Okay?  Because of our exposure, all right, by 2027, generative

  AI/will be used to look at the legacy systems and entities, government

  entities to help organisation -- the government entity identify what is

  this legacy system, what are the details of it, and how to plan to

  improve it as well.

    Isn't that powerful?

    It's an amazing revolution.  Because the alternative to that is

  basically to shepherd -- for the entity to shepherd and to spend a lot

  of money and bring a lot of consultants to know the history of 30 or 40

  years of their legacy system, to be able to upgrade it or maybe change

  it or I mean, modernize it.  Okay?  Is a key word here.  By using

  generative AI and organising the old systems of government, we're

  saving up to 70% of the cost.

    So we have generative AI on one side and we have the traditional way

  of modernizing our legacy systems.  Gen AI is something else.  Do you

  think this is a good thing for you to know and to take home with you?

  Definitely is something -- using generative AI and looking at your

  legacy systems for future enhancement.  Or modernization.  As they say,

  governments are in so much demand and they're sitting in the middle

  trying to accommodate all of the pressures coming from everywhere.  The

  first pressure is the demand by the citizenships, the citizens.  Okay?

  The citizens are acquiring more services, they want a better quality of

  life and they want it more and more of the government.

    So that said, the governments, the policy-makers, they're pushing the

  IT people, every time I mention CIO here, we're talking about the

  organisation within the government.

    So the CIO is to become more innovative to be able to serve the

  citizens in a more proper or more -- more advanced way.

    The second pressure, okay, which is how to accommodate all the

  pressures coming from everywhere else, which is the economical part of

  it, and how to ensure the quality of life based on the economical

  factors and provide the citizens with a good quality of life.

    The third, okay, is basically to make things happen.  All right?

    I mean, we know as citizens, we know that our governments are

  investing in technology, investing in changing, investing in

  everything.  Conferences, visions, what have you, it's part of our

  governments' promises.  But the pressure is here to divert and to come

  up -- to see the value on the ground.

    We as citizens, we need to see the value, many test, and to be taken

  advantage of.  All right?  So this is the pressure that does -- on

  government as well to show the value -- okay -- through the citizens.

    So I'd like to -- we'll tackle the subject of today.  Tackle -- I'll

  share with you some (Audio Distortion) what's going on from the

  business...okay?

    Trend No. 1, okay, managing trust and digital.  All right?

    So probably by today we have reached a point where we trust how to

  make a transaction on our cell phone, maybe to buy plane tickets or

  order our food.  This is transactional that has gained a lot of our

  confidence.  We know when we transfer our money from one account,

  another account, it's secure transaction, 100 percent.  How about other

  technologies that it's being adopted nowadays?

    Let's mention the computer version.  Let's mention the relation for

  filing issues.  There are so many technologies that might -- I mean

  attack the trust and citizenship and the citizens and taking advantage

  or -- of the services.  Or to bring the lack of trust and -- to

  citizen.  So we see that governments are looking to enhance this trust

  in citizens' eyes, to be able to gain more ground on adapting

  technologies.

    The second we see is institutional resilience.  Okay?  Institutional

  resilience is basically we have to have our governments ready, strong,

  to be able to accommodate any changes so fast -- okay -- to be able to

  accommodate this and -- in a manner that it could recover and adapt so

  fast to the changes around it.  Whether it's coming from citizens,

  economical, regulations, or what have you.

    So the government entity has to be resilient.  All right?

    So we -- by 2026, which is basically just around the corner, okay, in

  a year's time, we were predicting that G20 members will experience a

  monthly -- ration -- rationing basically to worry about electricity

  consumption.  I mean, the reason of this trend is basically adopting

  technologies nowadays as electricity and energy demanding.  Okay?

    For a quick example, is basically we're talking about cloud adoption.

  Whether AI solutions.  All of that requires a lot of computing power, a

  lot of computing power will require energy.  So energy is one of the

  issues that we see that has been trending that government entities are

  looking at where -- how to save and how to accommodate that.  Okay?

    You know that we see a lot of government entities and energy -- I

  mean, technology providers are looking to traditional energy sources,

  and nontraditional resources.  We're talking about the capability of

  energy, whether it's renewable energy or nowadays with subject to hear

  back, the nuclear energy as well.  Okay?  To be able to accommodate

  the -- the energy demand that the computing power needs -- okay -- some

  technology providers are looking at building nuclear plants to be able

  to feed that energy.

    The next trend that we see is basically experience management.

  Experience management is basically looking at the citizens.  Okay?

    Whatever that we need to do, it has to be customer centric, or

  citizen centric solution or solving a citizen issue that includes the

  citizens.

    When we say citizen centric, it's basically -- I mean, bringing the

  citizens to be part of the solution and they are on the table making

  the decisions to be able to absolve or come up with issues.  Okay?

    So by 2026, again, 87% of government CIOs, okay, will increase

  investment and producing positive experience as a critical business

  outcome.  All right?

    So we're investing more and more into bringing in the citizens to be

  able to come up with solutions that serves the citizens.  Okay?

    The next -- okay.

    Executive data efficacy.  Basically we need to focus on more -- on

  data.  The power of data is where everything lies.  So managing data

  from top -- from the decision-makers, okay, to centre down on how to

  govern and how to manage the data, it's very important.  All right?

    Nowadays we see trends that it is where governments, they are

  focussing more on organising their data, they govern the data, they're

  making it ready to be able to adopt any new technological or maybe

  advancement that they need.

    So by 2027, 50% of data analysts will be trained to become -- okay --

  data scientists.  And the current data scientists, there are being

  trained to become AI engineers.

    Okay?  So basically this shift is basically -- is taking place

  because of the power of the data and how to manage data and to make

  sure that it is ready to be adopted.  All right?

    So that it's a very powerful trend here.  Basically people are

  moving -- owe data analytics, it became like a norm.  Okay?

    In every organisation you talk to today, they have -- they have

  certain level of maturity when it comes to data analytics.  So the next

  step up is basically how to utilize this data in a more predictive and

  more intelligent way to be able to manage the challenges that we have

  mentioned earlier.

    Okay.  Workforce productivity.  All right?

    We're talking about government entities.  The challenges that we

  have -- all right -- is basically the productivity of the workforce on

  such entities.

    Whether funding the right skill, whether upscaling, whether how to

  measure the productivity and how to move forward to be able to

  accommodate, okay, what is demanded on the organizations and the

  governments and making things happen.

    So by 2026 -- okay -- 70 percent of the government agency will use AI

  to enhance human decision-making and will measure the productivity

  increase achieving that way.  So basically we're augmenting -- okay --

  the workforce with AI solutions, and AI agents, to be able to help

  elevating the productivity without replacing our workforce, of course.

  So this is something, a trend that we see that is happening today --

  okay -- whereby AI will be augmenting the workforce to achieve the

  productivity that we're seeking.

    So elevating that level of productivity.

    Okay.  With that said, okay, this is the pretty much what we see as a

  trend all over when it comes to business challenges in the government

  sector all over.  Let's look at the subject from a technological

  perspective.  And we all know that with technology, a lot of

  advancement, a lot of innovation has taken place.  It's rapidly

  changing, and the poor governments in the middle, somewhere they have

  to deal with this as well.

    So we see a trend of how to accommodate the technological

  advancements and moving forward.  To start with -- okay -- the concept

  of adaptive security.  Okay?

    With cyber security is a very important aspect, okay?  Big challenge,

  a lot of organizations, government and otherwise -- all right.  So the

  concept of adaptive security whereby utilizing AI to enable how to

  predict -- okay -- how to manage attacks, incidents related to a cyber

  attack.  Or cyber incidents.  Or to use -- okay, to adapt with whatever

  attacks are coming on or incidents, or possibly even incidents.

  Because there is an intelligence part of it here, AI is part of the

  story, and to be adaptive, to be able to move, to learn from whatever

  happens and to adapt to a new -- to better secured networks and systems

  as well.

    This is where the concept of adaptive security comes down.  So by

  2028, multi agency AI and threat detection, incident response, will

  raise from 5 percent to 70 percent.  Imagine from 5 percent to 70

  percent, AI will take place and helping -- okay -- with the detection

  and incident responses.

    Okay?

    Then we move to the digital identity assistance.  Okay?  We see

  governments all over the world, they wanted to make sure that they're

  taking the lead when it comes to digital identity.  What is their

  digital identity?  It's basically -- it's the concept of -- I mean

  authenticating and verifying that you are who you claim that you are in

  your transactions.  All right?

    Okay, you don't have to go to any place anymore or show an I.D. to be

  able to go through a transaction.  So the digitalized identity is a

  trend all over, it's taking place just for the governments to adopt, to

  be able to serve the citizens through -- through -- protect interests

  and services and in a way.

    So people, as we all know, I mean people living in Saudi Arabia --

  okay -- giving the digital identity part of the story, is extremely

  mature.  And Web capture and the -- is something that we see as an

  example.  Every time the subject mentioned somewhere else, okay, Saudi

  Arabia's success, and when it comes to -- when it comes to digital

  identity adoption and application.

    So by 2026 more than 500 million smart phones will handle

  transactions related to digital identity and transactions.  So this is

  the prediction.  More than 500 mobile smart phone will handle -- I

  mean, digital identity related transactions.  Okay?  Using your digital

  identity.

    Next is basically AI for decision intelligence.  Okay?

    When it comes to AI, adoptions of AI is trending all over the world.

  And definitely we need governments -- I mean, they have to make

  decisions.  We need to make it more intelligent, that's why we need

  data.  Data, to make sense of data is basically we're bringing AI into

  the story to be able to help us -- okay -- with the prediction and to

  making the tough decision.

    Okay?  So by 2026, over 70 percent of the government agencies will

  use AI to enhance human and the decision making and will measure the

  productivity increases achieving that way.  So again, bringing on AI to

  be able to elevate the level of decision-making.

    Next, as basically digital platform agility.  When we're talking

  about platforms, we're not talking about websites or applications.

  We're talking about more power for cell phones that serves our

  purposes.  It will be -- today as a government entity, all over the

  world -- okay -- I have challenges whereby to be able to scale tasks.

  To innovate.  Everybody's asking me as a government entity to be

  adjoined.  To be able to accommodate the citizens request, citizens

  denounce and to help with the technology demands and to cope with the

  security threats and cope with everything else and to be a little bit

  of -- and to scale up too fast.  At the same time.

    So the digital -- that form agility is one of the trends that we see

  a lot of governments are thinking seriously and moving to the cloud and

  using high-powered generated infrastructures to be able to accommodate

  the need for scalability and innovation and agility as well.

    So 75 percent of -- by 2025, which is next year, immediately next

  week, in two week's time, okay, while 75% of the government will expand

  the adoption of platform services with an organisation, with hyper

  scale cloud providers, delivering half of the workload.  Okay?

    This is the magic word here, basically by next your a lot of

  government entities, 70% of them, 75 -- 75 of them, will adopt -- will

  adopt cloud and -- cloud providers and hyper scalers to be able --

  okay -- to move -- or to move their 50 percent of their workload to the

  cloud, okay, to be able to accommodate the innovation and the

  requirement and the agility as well.  All right?

    If you are living in the -- in the Kingdom, and if you're involved

  when one of the wonderful measures that measures the maturity of the

  digital transformation maturity of organizations in the Kingdom here,

  is pay us.  Pay us is basically -- is one part of its mandate for next

  year, for basically the 50% mark that we're talking about here.  The

  50% mark.  Of your workload needs to be on the cloud.

    Okay?

    So this is part of the trend and we see it happening on a -- our --

  and we want to sample governments like in Saudi Arabia.

    Next, okay, a trend that we see all over.  Again, a management story.

  All right?  Data management story is basically whereby we -- we have to

  organise ourselves, okay, to be able to -- being ourselves, data ready

  to be able to accommodate any innovations, technological innovations.

  So when we are data ready, that means we know how to store our data, to

  manage it, know how to govern it, to make it available for any

  innovations that we have.

    So by 2026 more than 60% of government organizations will prioritize

  investments in business process automation up from 5 percent.  Okay?

    So currently the 35% adoption -- okay -- it will move up to 60

  percent by 2026.  All right?  By adopting a -- the -- what we call the

  process automation, which is basically making sure that our data is

  very well managed and -- I mean, and help us in our automation, the

  process automation.

    Okay.  Short and sweet.  Okay?  This is what -- currently what we see

  as trends when it comes to business challenges and technological

  challenges that trends that the governments are seeing nowadays.  Okay?

    Thank you so much for bearing with me for -- for the past few

  minutes.  And thank -- even it's been a pleasure.  And one thing that

  is required for me to share with you is basically a survey.  Okay?

    This is something that I mean the organisers ask to do is basically

  to pull up a survey on your phone.