Unlike previous years, GovTech 2017 aims to unpack pressing public sector problems and focus on finding meaningful ICT solutions to solve these issues to dramatically change the status quo.
So says Setumo Mohapi, CEO of the State Information Technology Agency (SITA).
Now in its 12th year, SITA's GovTech conference brings together government, state-owned entities, ICT sector stakeholders, private business sector, SMEs, academic institutions and non-profit organisations. The four-day conference will kick-off on Sunday at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban.
According to Mohapi, over the years the GovTech morphed into a showcase of technologies and solutions, looking for problems, and became of interest to some IT professionals and business owners in government.
It also became a one-stop talk-shop. We would talk, go away, and then come back the next year to talk some more, Mohapi told ITWeb.
"So the changes are: we are introducing a format of solution-making. We have selected four government clusters: social protection services, the economic cluster, local governance and administration, and crime prevention and justice.
"We worked with the director-generals and deputies of these government clusters so that they could let us know their pressing public policy problems. This gave us the time to map out how to use ICT to solve some of the issues these departments face."
SITA is forcing all conference participants and the industry to contextualise solution-making, he notes.
New additions
According to Mohapi, as part of the revamped conference programme, the agency decided to introduce two new sections prior to the conference's official start on Sunday.
For the past week, GovTech has been running a hackathon as well as a training course for SMEs.
The hackathon has brought together learners in grades 10 and 11, and teamed them up with SITA employees as well as young IT professionals from government departments.
"These young people are busy working with a number of companies that are providing technical mentorship," says Mohapi.
The SITA CEO pointed out the idea of the hackathon is in part a way to help with the development of a new type of public servant in IT. "What is needed are innovators, people who are thinking about business applications and how computer science can be used to drive better public service delivery."
The five-day SME training course focuses on specific technologies that are used by government right now. The participants will be tested, and once the training has been completed, they will receive their own GovTech certificates, says Mohapi.
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