Public Sector Blogs

You can be sure of seeing thought-provoking speakers at TICTeC, all focusing on the vital area of researching the impacts of Civic Technologies. We put a lot of effort into making sure of that!

And we especially strive to bring you keynote speakers who are inspiring, insightful, surprising… in some cases even provocative. You may still recall last year’s keynote Helen Milner asking ‘Is Civic Tech just an amusing pastime of the middle-classes?’.

For TICTeC 2017, we can promise keynotes that are just as compelling. We’re delighted to say that each day’s proceedings will be kicked off by  Tiago Carneiro Peixoto and Audrey Tang.

Tiago Carneiro Peixoto

Tiago is from the World Bank, part of the United Nations which has the ambitious mission of reducing world poverty.

As a Senior Public Sector Specialist, Tiago works with governments to develop solutions for better public policies and services.  As you might expect, that involves research around technology, citizen engagement and governance, to help understand how those things can intersect for the good of all. One example of that is the research using FixMyStreet reports, which demonstrated how government responsiveness can lead to citizens becoming more engaged.

If you’d like further reason to pay attention to his keynote, well, Tiago was featured in TechCrunch as one of the twenty most innovative people in democracy. We know he’ll have plenty to say that is of direct interest to TICTeC delegates.

Audrey Tang

In her inauguration speech, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said, “Before, democracy was a clash between two opposing values, but now democracy must be a conversation, a dialogue, between many different values”. To help bring about this vision, she appointed Audrey Tang as Minister for Digital in her new cabinet.

If you think parliamentary proceedings can be as dull as ditchwater, you may be in for a surprise. Audrey was not a standard appointment: she comes from a background of activist hacking, for one thing.

Since her arrival in August 2016, the government has undergone a colossal transformation into one of the most open and participatory administrations operating in the world today, ranking top in the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Open Data Index.

Audrey will be running through some of those groundbreaking changes in her keynote at TICTeC. Note that she’ll be ‘appearing’ virtually — she’s very much in demand — but there will still be the opportunity to pose questions to her live.

Get involved

Stand by, as we’ll shortly profile our two keynotes further. For now, we hope your appetite has been suitably whetted.

If you’re interested in presenting a session or workshop at TICTeC, see the Call for Papers here — and submit before February 10.

Registration to attend is available at the earlybird price until March 10 — book here.

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Images: Florence, Italy by Lex Kravetski; Audrey Tang by @daisuke1230 via Wikimedia Commons – both CC/by/2.0,

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Original source – mySociety