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The European’s Commission DG Connect has recently launched GovTech Connect, a pilot project aiming to foster the digitisation of the public sector through the use of an innovative European GovTech Platform - GovTech Connect. Carried out by a consortium formed by Intellera Consulting, PUBLIC Deutschland, The Lisbon Council, and Politecnico di Milano, GovTech Connect aims to support public administrations in the adoption of cost-effective and flexible digital solutions by articulating the GovTech ecosystem in the European public sector, over the course of two years.
The project will run two open innovation activities per year, including two boot camps aiming to identify innovative solutions in different regions across Europe, to solve key pressing challenges.
The boot camps will run as accelerated and intensive training programmes. Each boot camp will be delivered online over four weeks and will culminate with a final online pitch event in week 6.
Content will be delivered in form of masterclasses, workshops, roundtables and focus groups. Each week we will start with a full day of training, housing both lecture and activity-based sessions.
Within the boot camps, we will also facilitate a number of opportunities for start-ups to work together with citizens and co-develop user-centric products. Each start-up will be matched with a small pool of citizens that will be recruited by our consortium or directly by the start-ups, at the beginning of the programme.
The project will run two open innovation activities per year, including two boot camps aiming to identify innovative solutions in different regions across Europe, to solve key pressing challenges.
For 2023, the regions and challenges are the following:
The boot camps will be delivered by PUBLIC, with contributions from Politecnico di Milano, Intellera and Lisbon Council, all part of the Consortium implementing the pilot project GovTech Connect on behalf of the European Commission. PUBLIC has significant experience in working with European governments and innovators, having facilitated 100+ collaborations between government organisations and SMEs across 4 countries through thought-leadership and consulting activities, product development, innovation programmes and events.
The boot camps will run as accelerated and intensive training programmes for 4 weeks, with a dedicated learning day once per week. At least 1 startup team member must attend all sessions. The boot camps are funded by the EU.
The content of the boot camps includes topics on working with the government, innovative business models, sources of funding, pitch preparation and a closing final pitch.
Content will be delivered in the form of masterclasses, workshops, roundtables and focus groups. Each week we will start with a full day of training, housing both lecture and activity-based sessions.
Within the boot camps, we will also facilitate a number of opportunities for start-ups to work together with citizens and co-develop user-centric products. Each start-up will be matched with a small pool of citizens that will be recruited by our consortium or directly by the start-ups, at the beginning of the programme.s.
Training sessions are regional specific and will be delivered based on personal experiences from recognised experts, drawn from our network of leading entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, academics and public sector officials, with diverse expertise that span public sector procurement, investment, entrepreneurship, service design, design thinking and more.
The boot camp is targeted to early-stage start-ups that are developing technology-based solutions with the capacity to generate value for the public sector. These startups are usually in their pre-seed/seed phase. However, more mature startups that are new to working with governments are also encouraged to apply. Startups must fit within one of the challenges and its region.
Interested startups can apply to one of the boot camps via the application portal where they will be requested to provide general information on their company and team as well as more detailed information on their proposed solution and how it addresses the relevant challenge.
The application deadline for both boot camps is 5 May 2023.
The boot camps offer a number of unique benefits to startups:
We encourage all startups, including those from other regions of Europe, to subscribe to our JoinUp page and follow the project LinkedIn page to receive updates on any other project activities. In particular concerning the upcoming boot camps with a focus on Western Europe and Eastern & Central Europe in 2024.
A jury panel will assess applications made up of representatives from the project team, sectoral experts and citizen engagement leads.
Eligible startups will be scored based against the following criteria: Team Experience, Company Experience, Solution Feasibility and Citizen Engagement.
The expected resolution date will occur in the middle of May 2023.
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