Welcome to another episode of the Democracy Innovator Podcast and our guest of today is George Lagarte.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for the invitation.
and you're working at Lab X, And you're also directing it?
yeah, would you like to tell us something more about what is happening at Lab X?
Yeah, sure.
So LabX is the Innovation Division for the
Agency for Technological State Reform in Portugal.
So we have this agency that is responsible for digital transformation of public administration.
LabX, it's innovation division.
So we were created about 10 years ago.
It's 2016.
So LabX was created just as innovation lab, just
a small team to address specific problems on the context of public services.
We have a strong focus on service design.
We bring this uh human-centric view on public service delivery to public administration in Portugal about 10 years ago.
ah Since then we have been evolving.
ah
more projects, more different projects, not only on the scope of service design, but we have worked on uh culture transformation about innovative, anticipatory innovation.
We work on behavioral insights, we worked on strategic planning.
uh
So we have expanded our work and then emerging technologies about use of AI and...
all these emerging technologies we are worried about how can humans use it to its own profit not only to uh create the mechanisms we are worried about how to use them how can
they be applied to bring value to society so oh
Yeah, we worked a lot also on participation processes.
So because when you are on public administration, you cannot improve public service delivery or public policies if you don't have a clear vision of what are the needs and
expectations of society, of different profiles of citizens.
we have strengthened this area of civic participation.
We worked
along with different profiles of citizens because we have these mainstream of people informed and that are
knowledge of the political ecosystem but we have a part of the citizens that is very a part of this reality so we have the youngsters that are not worried about are very
influenced about the new perspectives of you have these far-right activities and with lots of intervention on social media with the
of fake news and stuff like that.
So we are very concerned about how can we develop uh civic consciousness on our youth and make them to involve themselves in participation about public discussions about public
policies.
Yeah, this has been a long journey since a small team of five people that are trying to create this wave about human-centric design on the public sector.
Nowadays we have about 30 people on our teams, we have three different teams.
So we have grown a lot since the...
2016 when we were created as a small intervention team and now we have a full army of designers to reshape the public sector in Portugal.
you were saying 30 people that are working on different projects.
I was curious about the different projects they're working on.
Yeah, we have three different teams.
So one team is for ah
studies and innovation networks.
So they make, they are always scoping on the future, are prospecting new initiatives, new trends on society, new trends of technology.
They do these studies for how to make these diagnosis about some particular problem or try to understand better new technologies or new trends.
So
ah we can be on this frontline of innovation to bring this for public sector.
So this is one of the team and these anchor ah three networks that we manage.
We have this network of innovators that is public sector.
civil servants and managers from public sector that recognize the importance of innovation in the public sector.
We have these meetings and have these newsletters and all this kind of communication that we bring to them.
We these capacitation programs that we deliver training to them.
We have created a network of innovation teams.
We give training and create these innovation teams inside other public agencies like tax authorities, social security, in the municipalities.
Nowadays we have a network of 15 other labs, other innovation labs.
have the teams from the Navy, from Judiciary Police.
So it's a very broad scope.
We have an hospital, also a team from a hospital trying to focus on the public hospital, trying to focus on how can they design better the services, the flow of people in the ER,
something like that.
So we have this network and we are also the representatives in Portugal of the Open Government Partnership.
this initiative that was promoted by former president Barack Obama that
created this worldwide colligation uh based on these four pillars about fighting corruption, promoting transparency in public sector, promoting civic participation and the
use of technologies in the civil society.
we are the coordinators of this network in Portugal and the representatives on the international forum.
So this is all in the theme of studies
innovation.
We have a team for projects, they do service design projects, they do this digital transformation, so we have clients such as Portuguese Court of Auditors, Tax Authority, we
are redesigning for instance, creating a model for self-service kiosks on public service, like
Yeah, have all sorts of projects.
ah And then we have a third team that it's a team about innovation services that in which we everything that other two teams have developed and we can offer public sector as a
service.
So this team is responsible for.
uh
collecting all the insights from the other teams and the results of their projects and to create products and services that can be offered to other public entities.
that's we have these workflows, work streaming.
First of all, the team of studies started and discover new things, then the project teams apply it.
And then a third team about innovation services that create products and services based on these
streamline workflow.
So this is how we are settled and how we work in Portugal.
We also have lots of connections with other teams across the world from oh Brazil and all Latin America.
We have lots of connections with OECD.
So we have
are working directly with them in a couple of projects.
uh And yeah, so that's a glimpse of what we do and how we are established.
a lot of things and
I've not, I just have told you the highlights in terms of projects and other initiatives we have nowadays more than 30 initiatives ah working on the field.
yeah, lots of stuff.
And I was curious about um how to design a service that is human-centered.
Yeah, oh working with people.
For instance, I'm an environmental engineer.
don't...
I don't know everything.
Okay, I have experience in public services.
I worked in this area for almost 15 years.
But I give you an example.
We are developing accessible services for deaf people.
Okay, so yeah, we have to bring deaf people to us and ask them how they want to use this service.
We have to understand what are their limitations, what can help them.
uh The only way to this,
design human centric services is to bring the real users of the service uh right next to us in order to
for us to understand what are the needs, what are the expectations, then co-create with them the solutions and test.
We have this workflow based on three very simple steps that we have developed based on service design methodologies and design thinking methodologies.
So the first step is to research, to identify the right problems and the right needs, what the people really want.
create with everyone, with the users and public officials and service managers and political sponsors and meet with them.
agree what is the better solution for a service and then test that solution because when we imagine a service it's all on our head we just have to put it to the reality test to
see that in fact this service will respond to users needs so it's not rocket science it's all to bring the right users to us or to go meet them
and understand what's their problems and try to solve them.
But we need to have this disposition, this availability to go and meet the users.
So if you are designing...
ah
services for migrants for instance, then we go we have to go to the communities and talk to people and understand them.
So yeah, that's this is how this very straightforward process to research, co-create and experiment and in all steps of the process bring people around us to understand them, to
know their ideas because they have ideas, because they face these problems every
every day uh and they have lots of time to think in ways that the service will be better delivered to them and then bring them to experiment what we are imagining that will solve
their problem to see if effectively it will solve so it's not big secret very easy just talk to the people
Yeah, sometimes we have to test differences between theory and practice.
Yeah, yeah, just to pass that gap.
Yeah, we have to, yeah, because we have these, I say it's a bad culture to when we design public services, we close ourselves in our...
in our knowledge and we think that we know everything about citizens and how they interact with each other and how they interact with the services.
So the public sector don't have this culture of participation, of listening to people.
So because we are somehow arrogance to think that we know everything.
That's not true.
uh
This is humbleness.
We need to be humble and to recognize that we don't know everything.
So we have to ask people and to see them and observe them as they use services.
What I...
Many, one of the most critical activities when we are redesigning face-to-face services is to our researchers go to the field on the shops that they deliver the services and just
observe what are the dynamics, what the people say, how they interact with the public servants.
So, and we stay there for hours taking notes, understanding how can we improve this
can we give more information, can we even avoid that people use the service if we can predict what they need we can be proactive and deliver them the services even before they
realize that they need it.
We have the example on driver's license for instance oh when the driver's license is reaching his limit uh
expiry date so we send
text message to people or within the app, the government app, we have this application.
So we send them a notification and tell, okay, your driver's license is going to expire.
Do you want to renew it?
And people just have to say yes.
And we send them uh a bank code so they can pay because it's a uh paid service.
And then the driver's license is going to buy mail to their home.
So, and this is how the government uh
if we know that document will expire, we can be proactive on these services.
So, yeah, this is how we do it.
Very interesting.
I was thinking in relation to the digitalization of the public sector, how does it happen?
Like things that do not work in a digitalized way are then digitalized or it could be that there is also a new kind of approach.
I don't know if the question is clear, like if you take like a process that is analogic and you just try to implement it digitally so it is, let's say, faster or also try to
simplify the process so that it works.
of course, because yeah, we have always to, we want, we try always to simplify first before digitalization, because most of these workflows are from...
50 years ago, the laws that define the workflow or the services, they are from late 60s and 70s.
This is the legal framework that comes from that period of time.
So the context today is very different.
So uh we have this example in which
We didn't do it because the government, the minister doesn't give us the opportunity.
They just said, OK, we have this service.
You have to digitalize it.
But at this moment, we lost opportunities because the law says that people must submit a PDF document with their photo.
m
We have to reproduce this mechanism on the digital service.
It's stupid because when I do my authentication with my digital ID I already give my photo to the system.
So my information is already on the system.
We shouldn't ask people to take a picture and then transform it on the PDF and submit it.
It's crazy.
Another example for...
We have these storms in Portugal in the last couple of weeks, so now we are going to the field and trying to understand who needs the state support so they can fund the damage so
they can rebuild their homes, okay?
But they need to make prove that...
that's his house.
So if I'm asking for the government to help me to rebuild my house, I have to prove that that's my house.
So, but nowadays I can go to...
public registrations and understand that this citizen has this house is registered in his name.
So he's not the one who has to make proof because I as a government, I already has this information.
So that's why it's very important when we start digitalizing these services that already exist so we can apply a simplification process before because there are lots of services
that demand citizens to go to a different public entity to get the document and then to submit it on another public service.
So we say that it's the effect of oh
like a pigeon, have this courier's pigeon, so I, the citizen, I have to go there, pay for a document so that I can submit it again to another public entity.
So this is against the principle of the only once, once only principle in which when we gave our information to the government
one time is enough.
The government then has to make all the efforts to spread this information across all the different public entities that need this information.
ah For instance, you have to tell the government what is your home address, okay?
But you should have to say just to one entity
to the entity that is responsible for this registration and then this entity will tell everyone else that your address is there.
You don't have to communicate your address to all public entities to stay with your data updated.
It's not how it should work.
uh In this era of technology it's...
enough that you update your information with the government just one time and then the government shares this information with everyone that needs it inside the government of
course.
So yeah, that's very important to apply the simplification workflow before digitalization.
So we are just missing opportunities.
I'm very glad that this is happening because yeah, it's it's frustrating when you have to take one document from one entity and then give it to the other one and also maybe pay and
also book and so on so Yeah, not that nowadays yeah Yeah, and how do you think how um
in terms of, I don't know, roadmap in how many years it will require to have all this ah simplification of the public administration.
It's difficult to have...
a roadmap that you can say, I will transform every public services on this vision.
We established the vision, we have this definition of what is a new generation public service.
We have defined, we have this co-creation session with major service providers from the government and we have a definition, okay.
uh
And this is a service that is omni-channel, that is supported by digital platforms and that it's a comprehensive any interaction between citizens and civil society and public
entities and gives data to our open data platforms and uses interoperability and as all these m
uses digital ID, uses the public uh notification system that is available on the app.
So we have this definition.
But then we have more than, yeah, 5,000 public services just on central administration, not talking about municipalities, okay?
From these almost 4,000 services, we have about 200 that fulfill every checkpoints about these new generation services.
So we have to redesign and reimplement the others.
3000 and a lot.
So, and then you start doing this process and okay, we have started a couple of years ago, a lot of years ago, but at some points, all these technological new technologies that
appear uh and the technological evolution is being so fast that the services that we see of state of the art a couple of years ago that can now be improved in
better way using for instance AI.
we could establishing a roadmap I guess it's important but we have to be agile enough to understand that it's not never going to be a closed roadmap because
We are intervening some services now, but I understand that next year we'll have different ah government priorities.
OK, so we are always trying to redefining this vision, refining the vision.
And yeah, it's not always very easy to.
to go to strong entities, strong agencies like the tax authority.
They have lots of money, they run the state budget.
yeah, they are the main responsible for the funding of the state.
So they always have different priorities, different than to deliver...
better services to citizens, they are worried about other things.
So it's very difficult to make them all aligned with this initiative because it's easier when a country started the digitalization process later because when they started they
could align everyone.
And you got this example from Estonia.
Estonia is one of the more developed countries on this, but they are less than 1 million people.
They are...
They started...
uh Late the digitalization process and they have started everything right.
Okay in Portugal we have this boom of Each entity created their systems their technological systems to create their brands their platforms their service model delivery
and and we have Allowed them to create monsters individual monsters and now it's very difficult to create a baseline and or black
everyone to follow these guidelines but we have these guidelines and we have ah we are
Walking the road, we have these roadmaps for the different entities to align their services with this vision, but there are lots of services, lots of entities, and as I
said, on the middle of this process, the next big thing will occur and we'll have to focus on that and then adapt every existing services to that new biggest thing.
Yeah.
So yeah, never ending story.
I was thinking about the digitalization of services also in relation to I think you may have seen the Argentic State the paper that was released some months ago and yeah so I was
curious because one of the sort of thesis maybe was that
citizens are used to uh services from the private sector that are very quick.
um And so because, as you said, the public sector is very complex and a lot of monsters happen, are born, were born in the past, so that also the state should find a new way um
to organize itself and also in relationship to citizens.
And so when I asked for the roadmap, I was curious, like, more like if you think in, let's say, 10 years, everything will be digitalized enough.
And also simplified because I see this occasion of digitalizing also, as you said,
but you touch a very good point because in this vision for an agentic state, everything that we have done about the new generation of public services can be different.
uh
So we are already trying to train some agents and try to mostly around licensing processes that are very complex and uh deal with very different entities, public entities.
uh But I guess there is still a long road to evolve because people are very uh focused on
on the outcomes, what they want, they want to simplify, they want to be faster, but they are not worried about how can we do it in a safe way, in a way that we can guarantee that
the rights of these people and the data and personal information is used in the right way.
uh
designing the processes.
It's what you have said before, even for AI, it's not a simplification, but we have to prepare it for, we have to prepare the services to be ah done by an agent.
So.
and the agent has to be on the top of an infrastructure based on digital IDs, based on interoperability, based on public datasets.
So, yeah, we have to create and see if that infrastructure is fit to the goals that we have.
And then, we will start to developing all these kinds of agents.
But we have to make sure that we are doing the right
We have already some experiences going on about licensing.
We are looking and we are having conversations.
are colleagues from Ukraine that already has these chatbots that can make transactional services.
And we are trying to make our first experiences in that field.
But it's very important that...
We have very complex licensing process, not only us, because it's European regulations.
So how can you guarantee that an agent will not hallucinate with all the different requirements and the different locations?
Because each location has different rules because of their territory characteristics.
And they have the municipalities that they are the owners of the territory.
They have their own rules.
Are we sure that we can make an agent that can navigate all these complex and um different realities 100 % sure?
Because we cannot live with a...
Sussex rate of 70 percent.
We have to make sure that there are the right licences, the right processes and we have to give verified information to the citizens and the companies because it's their lives,
their businesses, their subsistence that is in cause.
So we have to make sure that all these AI services that we are going to develop
uh are safe and are coming to simplify and to solve problems.
ah So yeah, we are starting.
have already had a great talk with Simone and their colleagues from the Agenetic State, so we can understand a little bit better what are their work and what are their visions.
And yeah, we are starting our work.
uh But yeah, it's very difficult to foresee about in five years.
I don't know what's going to happen next year if that crazy Trump has any crazy idea and blow the world.
Yeah, we live in a very...
in constant society it's very difficult to predict what's going to be the next big thing when it's going to occur it's going to be next year it's going to be next month uh when
yeah and all of this is going to influence influence it and conditionate our work so yeah one day at a time
Yeah, I mean we were living in some interesting times and yeah, it is true what you said and and about possible risk of digitalization because also you mentioned like data has to
be
treated in a safe way, that privacy is respected and so on.
So I wonder for you uh what could be the risk of digitalization if it is not done in a correct way.
No, it's...
We have these...
examples ongoing.
ah Digitalization can bring very easy access to information about everything and about yourself and myself.
And it's very easy to have a database with all our information because only you have this digital footprint that you live in the world.
We can keep track of ah what your browser history of what are your trends, what are your likes, what are your political.
ah
sympathy yeah and then if this information is shared
I don't know, you've seen these examples on the United States nowadays when the central government is pressing some states to give their uh information about their voters and
about the...
Yeah, this is crazy.
every system where it's gathered information about citizens has to be protected.
It cannot be...
ah
available for everything and everyone.
There are lots of concerns about this.
ah
because we live in a strange world nowadays.
You can imagine, we see movies, we know that what can be done if there is someone that doesn't like you discover your home address.
We don't want to subject our citizens to these kind of situations.
We have to be very...
very ethic about this kind of work.
I had a question but I forget it.
No, yeah.
No, yeah, I mean something about your background if you'd like to share it.
uh Also personal background.
Yeah, so uh I'm environmental engineer.
yeah, I've started because I was a kid and I wanted to change the world or save the world about the climate change.
But this is worth 30 years ago and the world have...
done nothing about climate change.
yeah, at some point of my life, I'm going to change.
So if I want to be uh effective on bringing a good impact to the world, it's not on the environmental part.
ah So I joined public sector and started to work on services.
And this is about 2010.
And yeah, it's quite a rise.
I've saw this is all a lot because at the beginning of my career, I started my own business and I've seen all the bureaucratic issues that are very difficult to create our
own business and to navigate the complexity of of bureaucratic procedures and everything.
So at one point, yeah, this cannot be this difficult.
We have to try to simplify this this process.
And yeah, this is my motivation is a lot to make life easier to people because nowadays we have very difficult lives, most of us.
We have to struggle to reach the end of the month with money to feed our kids and stuff like that.
So...
At least the interactions with the government has to be easy.
So this is what I think.
uh Yeah, so this is the motivation.
oh
And in relation to the work you're doing, something that you're struggling at, something that is difficult to do, that maybe you're working on it now, and you're always thinking
about it.
This is always a struggle, so making guys from government to stop ah with their ideas because they think they know everything and to make sure that they can understand the
people's needs and uh understand it's...
ongoing struggle.
It's every day for, okay, the minister has decided to open or create this initiative and we say, okay, this is not the best way to go to achieve your goal.
If you can do it on other way, it will be better.
Yeah, that's the everyday struggle, trying to make people understand that it's important to have this human-centric approach, not only designing services, but also designing
policies, because at the end of the day, the government is to uh rule, not rule, but to manage, help to manage people's lives.
So...
ah
has to be easy and has to respond to their needs.
So yeah, it's not easy at times because this culture of public sector knowing stuff, the government knows it all.
This is cultural and it's not going to end...
oh
by a snap of a finger, it's a generational change and it's made by citizens more informed, more willing to participate and take part of the civic life.
And it's difficult nowadays because our kids are most a part of these things, they are...
ah
very exposed for all kinds of stuff using TikToks and Instagrams and and not to the most
through uh things that there are lots of misinformation and fake news and yeah, that's very important to address as a public sector representative as I am.
And I have kids also, have...
twins with 16 years old so I'm very aware about what's happening in those heads so yeah we have to help them somehow
And do you have any message for the people that are working on similar things or like that are working on civic tech, gov tech, digitalization of other countries?
Yeah, keep on going because you are doing it right so it's very guys from civic tech uh
We have uh this process, this is last year, we have reunited the community of more than 100 people around the co-creation process and how emerging technologies can help us to
promote civic participation.
and it's what's very, very impressive to see the...
momentum that was created by this initiative and the willing of everyone that works in this area to make a good impact in the world.
So ah it's very important to understand that they are not alone in the world.
are networks that they can give you support.
There are lots of people working on this uh on many different countries.
So uh
and it was much easier for everyone if we can establish strong connections and strong networks because most of the problems are common ah
about the disinformation, about how can we make our youth to be more active on civic participation.
This is a problem that not only in Portugal, but we can see it in Italy for sure, or in Spain, or in France, or in the Netherlands.
So yeah, there are common challenges and we have to learn with each other better and to address them appropriately
in each of our contexts.
that's it.
The message is you are not alone.
So thank you a lot, Giorgi, if you would like to add anything else.
No, no, it's perfect.
So thank you for this conversation.
It's always nice to talk about these issues with guys that are interested in it.
let's keep in touch.