— Galicia has just joined the Govtech4all consortium along with 22 government agencies and companies from 15 EU countries to strengthen the single market for new models of innovation in the public administrations.

— The Agency for Technological Modernization of Galicia has participated in a high-level meeting of the European Commission on Artificial Intelligence for the public sector.

— The representation of the Xunta de Galicia has met with officials from the Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission.

Brussels, 23th June 2022 – A representation of the Agency for the Technological Modernization of Galicia (AMTEGA) held several meetings in Brussels with European Union officials to address the progress made in Galicia in the application of intelligent technologies in the service of the Administration. In these meetings it had the support of the Fundación Galicia Europa.

The director of the Office of Strategic Support and Planning of AMTEGA, María Bobillo, held today a meeting with the heads of “The Lisbon Council”, promoters of the Govtech4all initiative, to which the Xunta has just joined.

This consortium, called Govtech4all, aims to open up the public sector technology market to ensure that governments use the best solutions, without being conditioned by the need to better adjust to procurement processes or by the tendency to acquire “native” technology.

According to the promoters of the initiative, “Govtech4all will promote new models of public sector innovation”. It will also enable “the public and private sectors, research organizations and NGOs to work together to learn from each other, deliver common pilot projects and raise the profile of smart government in each country to a level that can be considered EU level”.

In the Consortium, in addition to the Agency for Technological Modernization of Galicia, companies from 15 European countries also participate: Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Germany, Estonia, Denmark, Lithuania, France and Italy. On the Spanish side, the signatories so far are the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, the City of Madrid, the Lantik (society participated exclusively by the Provincial Council of Vizcaya for digital transformation) and the Agency for Technological Modernization of Galicia.

Also today, the representative of the Agency held a meeting with the head of digital strategy policies of the Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DGCONNEC) of the European Commission. María Bobillo explained to the EU representative the contents and objectives of the Galicia Digital 2030 Strategy, as well as the progress made in the process of digital transformation of the public administration in Galicia.

In the afternoon, the Galician representative attended a high-level round table on Artificial Intelligence for the public sector in which the European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, Johannes Hahn, intervened.

Smart government in Galicia

Galicia has already started its own Smart Government project (GobTech), which includes a framework agreement for 30 million euros. This budget will help the regional administration and public entities in the contracting of services for the promotion of advanced technologies.

The Galicia 2030 Strategy and the Galician Artificial Intelligence Strategy establish the roadmap for the development of an advanced digital administration that uses all the available resources of intelligent technologies.

The Strategy promoted by the Xunta de Galicia for the entire digital transformation is based on collaboration schemes between public administrations and private sectors reflected in the ‘nodes’. In this sense, the #NodoGalicia is in the process of constitution, which will host all the agents involved in the development of Artificial Intelligence under ethical criteria.

This collaboration model is already working. An example of this is the agreement that the Xunta signed with the three universities of the Galician University System, which consists of the elaboration of a study for the configuration of an ethical and regulatory framework for the development of Artificial Intelligence.

Work is also at an advanced stage to evaluate and improve the efficiency of administrative procedures with intelligent technologies, in collaboration with the University of Santiago de Compostela. Within the framework of this agreement, a methodology is being developed for the analysis with process mining techniques and the implementation of an advanced virtual assistant at the service of citizens.

More information: Xunta de Galicia