Government technology commonly referred to as "GovTech" or "E-governance" is the technological infrastructure that government departments use to do their internal work or provide services to their "customers", i.e. citizens.
This transformation to digital platforms focuses on reducing time and costs in all types of administrative procedures, while also improving the veracity and certification of information exchanged.Here are five European start-ups in the Govtech sector that are leveraging digital tools to revitalise democracy and government services across Europe.
5 new Start Up: Govtech Sector
The Greek startup developed a civic engagement app that facilitates interaction between local government and citizens. Being much more than a simple communication tool, citizens were able to request services and report problems in more than 45 cities around the world, simply by downloading Novoville.
The company provides a data analysis and visualisation platform that connects municipal and city data from multiple sources with local government decision-makers, enabling municipalities to optimise their operations and improve decision-making and planning when it comes to some of their main fields of action: schools, mobility, childcare, etc.
It is a Brussels-based citizen participation platform that involves citizens in co-creating their communities and their cities by submitting their ideas to the city government and receiving feedback on them. The city of Hasselt was the first city to use the initiative to involve its citizens in a local project, and since then more than 100 governments and 15,000 citizens have joined the journey.
The Helsinki-based startup designs the cities of the future by providing citizens with a digital platform where they can innovate, interact and co-design their living environments. They then mix the creativity of citizens with this existing data from local governments, public organisations and other decision makers and who knows, something good might emerge.
Citibeats
It is a platform developed to help governments better understand and respond to citizens' concerns, through the use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. Aiming to become the universal platform for societal engagement. Since November 2017, Citibeats has been developing its AI social data intelligence platform to help cities understand rapid social change and its impacts.