The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> FARES SHADAD: Good morning everyone.
Again, on behalf of the organisers, I would like to welcome you for this session today where we're talking about the top business and technology trends in government.
Okay. 2024, and probably 2025 as well, it seems like it's trending on the same path. All right?
My name is Fares Shadad, I am the presenter in today's session. And I will be happy to walk you through a few statistics. Okay. We have some trends that we see coming ‑‑ okay ‑‑ that already some of it took place and probably more to come.
But let me ask you this. I mean, usually I'd love to have a session to be more interactive. Okay?
I'd like to ask you a question; okay?
Apparently it would be a rhetorical question because I would love to have ‑‑ I would love getting some feedback from you. If the Genie just showed up, okay, and granted you wishes ‑‑ but not three, only one. Okay?
One wish as granted, to wish for your government to give you something. What is the service that you would require from your government that you feel that this is missing, that you will ask your government to have? Okay.
I mean, for the audience who's here, would you like to share something?
Innovation? Okay. Technological innovation, maybe? To adopt more technology innovation than you're ‑‑ in the government, and the services that the government provides you; right?
Okay. Focussing on security. Amazing. I mean, this is very good. Two points to start with. But we need to remember something very important. The challenges that the government act ‑‑ okay? I mean, look no further, I mean, if you look around you, you see the challenges are taking place around us.
Let's take a look at some of the things that we see around you. Global turmoil, cyber threats, regional conflicts, local pressures, increasing citizen demand. This is some of the factors that are affecting our lives on a daily basis. Do we agree to it? We do. It's all around us. All right?
One, I mean, one pressure and one challenge that government sees nowadays is basically several challenges coming from everywhere. Okay?
Not only from the external factors that we see here, but sometimes it's the pressure of the citizens, as we said. Citizens are asking for more products, more services. They care about the quality of life.
And the government is sitting in the middle to serve, to be able to accommodate what's outside, all the pressure that comes from the outer world, and at the same time to accommodate the demand of the citizens all around.
So therefore, for today's presentation we're discussing the business side of the story and maybe the technical side of the story where are the trends, helping ‑‑ I mean, trending and the tech challenges and what ‑‑ I mean, what the governments are doing. Okay?
What are the governments are facing.
One thing for a fact ‑‑ okay ‑‑ one of the biggest challenges that the government has, which is an internal challenge, is basically what we call in the world of IT is legacy systems. Okay? Is legacy system a concept that is familiar to you?
It's the old computer systems, because you have a lot of organizations, a lot of government organizations, militaries, honour ‑‑ see my government entities, they have been using IT for the longest time. They invested so much money, time, resources into building their systems. All of a sudden it became a legacy, with a lot of challenges, a lot of demands on the services of the government. So some of the systems that they have, it became some sort of old, needs to be updated. All right?
One of the biggest challenges that the government has today, how can we upgrade? Okay?
From our exposure to a lot of government entities all over the world, upgrading those legacy systems is not an easy task. Bloody expensive. Lucky for us we have a new technology today; and we will talk more about today that probably will help us.
All of us probably use by now ‑‑ I mean, in abundance, ChatGPT, right? Okay. ChatGPT is an application of AI.
Think about it.
Okay? Because of our exposure, all right, by 2027, generative AI will be used to look at the legacy systems and entities, government entities to help organisation ‑‑ the government entity identify what is this legacy system, what are the details of it, and how to plan to improve it as well.
Isn't that powerful?
It's an amazing revolution. Because the alternative to that is basically to shepherd ‑‑ for the entity to shepherd and to spend a lot of money and bring a lot of consultants to know the history of 30 or 40 years of their legacy system, to be able to upgrade it or maybe change it, or I mean, modernize it. Okay? Is a key word here. By using generative AI and organising the old systems of government, we're saving up to 70% of the cost.
So we have generative AI on one side, and we have the traditional way of modernizing our legacy systems. Gen AI is something else.
Do you think this is a good thing for you to know and to take home with you? Definitely is something ‑‑ using generative AI and looking at your legacy systems for future enhancement. Or modernization. As they say, governments are in so much demand, and they're sitting in the middle trying to accommodate all of the pressures coming from everywhere.
The first pressure is the demand by the citizenships, the citizens. Okay? The citizens are acquiring more services, they want a better quality of life, and they want it more and more of the government.
So that said, the governments, the policy‑makers, they're pushing the IT people. Every time I mention CIO here, we're talking about the organisation within the government. So the CIO is to become more innovative to be able to serve the citizens in a more proper or more ‑‑ more advanced way.
The second pressure, okay, which is how to accommodate all the pressures coming from everywhere else, which is the economical part of it, and how to ensure the quality of life based on the economical factors and provide the citizens with a good quality of life.
The third, okay, is basically to make things happen. All right?
I mean, we know as citizens, we know that our governments are investing in technology, investing in changing, investing in everything. Conferences, visions, what have you, it's part of our governments' promises. But the pressure is here to divert and to come up ‑‑ to see the value on the ground.
We as citizens, we need to see the value manifest and to be taken advantage of. All right? So this is the pressure that does ‑‑ on government as well to show the value ‑‑ okay ‑‑ through the citizens.
So I'd like to ‑‑ we'll tackle the subject of today. Tackle ‑‑ I'll share with you some (Audio Distortion) what's going on from the business...okay?
Trend No. 1, okay, managing trust and digital. All right?
So probably by today we have reached a point where we trust how to make a transaction on our cell phone, maybe to buy plane tickets or order our food. This is transactional that has gained a lot of our confidence. We know when we transfer our money from one account, another account, it's secure transaction, 100 percent.
How about other technologies that it's being adopted nowadays?
Let's mention the computer version. Let's mention the relation for filing issues. There are so many technologies that might ‑‑ I mean, attack the trust and citizenship and the citizens and taking advantage or ‑‑ of the services. Or to bring the lack of trust and ‑‑ to citizen. So we see that governments are looking to enhance this trust in citizens' eyes, to be able to gain more ground on adapting technologies.
The second we see is institutional resilience. Okay? Institutional resilience is basically we have to have our governments ready, strong, to be able to accommodate any changes so fast ‑‑ okay ‑‑ to be able to accommodate this and ‑‑ in a manner that it could recover and adapt so fast to the changes around it. Whether it's coming from citizens, economical, regulations, or what have you.
So the government entity has to be resilient. All right?
So by 2026, which is basically just around the corner, okay, in a year's time, we were predicting that G20 members will experience a monthly rationing basically to worry about electricity consumption. I mean, the reason of this trend is basically adopting technologies nowadays as electricity and energy demanding. Okay?
For a quick example, is basically we're talking about cloud adoption. Whether AI solutions, all of that requires a lot of computing power, a lot of computing power will require energy. So energy is one of the issues that we see that has been trending that government entities are looking at where, how to save, and how to accommodate that. Okay?
You know that we see a lot of government entities and energy ‑‑ I mean, technology providers are looking to traditional energy sources, and nontraditional resources. We're talking about the capability of energy, whether it's renewable energy, or nowadays with subject to hear back, the nuclear energy as well. Okay? To be able to accommodate the ‑‑ the energy demand that the computing power needs ‑‑ okay ‑‑ some technology providers are looking at building nuclear plants to be able to feed that energy.
The next trend that we see is basically experience management. Experience management is basically looking at the citizens. Okay?
Whatever that we need to do, it has to be customer centric, or citizen centric solution, or solving a citizen issue that includes the citizens.
When we say citizen centric, it's basically ‑‑ I mean, bringing the citizens to be part of the solution, and they are on the table making the decisions to be able to absolve or come up with issues. Okay?
So by 2026, again, 87% of government CIOs, okay, will increase investment and producing positive experience as a critical business outcome. All right?
So we're investing more and more into bringing in the citizens to be able to come up with solutions that serves the citizens. Okay?
The next ‑‑ okay.
Executive data efficacy. Basically we need to focus on more ‑‑ on data. The power of data is where everything lies. So managing data from top ‑‑ from the decision‑makers, okay, to centre down on how to govern and how to manage the data, it's very important. All right?
Nowadays we see trends that it is where governments, they are focussing more on organising their data, they govern the data, they're making it ready to be able to adopt any new technological or maybe advancement that they need.
So by 2027, 50% of data analysts will be trained to become ‑‑ okay ‑‑ data scientists. And the current data scientists, they are being trained to become AI engineers.
Okay? So basically this shift is basically ‑‑ is taking place because of the power of the data and how to manage data, and to make sure that it is ready to be adopted. All right?
So that it's a very powerful trend here. Basically people are moving ‑‑ owe data analytics, it became like a norm. Okay?
In every organisation you talk to today, they have ‑‑ they have certain level of maturity when it comes to data analytics. So the next step up is basically how to utilize this data in a more predictive and more intelligent way to be able to manage the challenges that we have mentioned earlier.
Okay. Workforce productivity. All right?
We're talking about government entities. The challenges that we have ‑‑ all right ‑‑ is basically the productivity of the workforce on such entities.
Whether funding the right skill, whether upscaling, whether how to measure the productivity and how to move forward to be able to accommodate, okay, what is demanded on the organizations and the governments and making things happen.
So by 2026 ‑‑ okay ‑‑ 70% of the government agency will use AI to enhance human decision‑making and will measure the productivity increase achieving that way. So basically we're augmenting ‑‑ okay ‑‑ the workforce with AI solutions, and AI agents, to be able to help elevating the productivity without replacing our workforce, of course. So this is something, a trend that we see that is happening today ‑‑ okay ‑‑ whereby AI will be augmenting the workforce to achieve the productivity that we're seeking.
So elevating that level of productivity.
Okay. With that said, okay, this is pretty much what we see as a trend all over when it comes to business challenges in the government sector all over. Let's look at the subject from a technological perspective. And we all know that with technology, a lot of advancement, a lot of innovation has taken place. It's rapidly changing. And the poor governments in the middle, somewhere they have to deal with this as well.
So we see a trend of how to accommodate the technological advancements and moving forward. To start with ‑‑ okay ‑‑ the concept of adaptive security. Okay?
With cyber security is a very important aspect. Okay? Big challenge, a lot of organizations, government and otherwise ‑‑ all right. So the concept of adaptive security whereby utilizing AI to enable how to predict ‑‑ okay ‑‑ how to manage attacks, incidents related to a cyber attack. Or cyber incidents. Or to use ‑‑ okay, to adapt with whatever attacks are coming on or incidents, or possibly even incidents. Because there is an intelligence part of it here. AI is part of the story, and to be adaptive, to be able to move, to learn from whatever happens, and to adapt to a new ‑‑ to better secured networks and systems as well.
This is where the concept of adaptive security comes down. So by 2028, multi agency AI and threat detection, incident response, will raise from 5% to 70%. Imagine from 5% to 70%, AI will take place and helping ‑‑ okay ‑‑ with the detection and incident responses.
Okay?
Then we move to the digital identity assistance. Okay? We see governments all over the world, they wanted to make sure that they're taking the lead when it comes to digital identity.
What is their digital identity? It's basically ‑‑ it's the concept of ‑‑ I mean, authenticating and verifying that you are who you claim that you are in your transactions. All right?
Okay. You don't have to go to any place anymore or show an I.D. to be able to go through a transaction. So the digitalized identity is a trend all over, it's taking place just for the governments to adopt, to be able to serve the citizens through ‑‑ through ‑‑ protect interests and services and in a way.
So people, as we all know ‑‑ I mean, people living in Saudi Arabia ‑‑ okay ‑‑ giving the digital identity part of the story is extremely mature. And Web capture and the ‑‑ is something that we see as an example. Every time the subject mentioned somewhere else, okay, Saudi Arabia's success, and when it comes to ‑‑ when it comes to digital identity adoption and application.
So by 2026 more than 500 million smart phones will handle transactions related to digital identity and transactions. So this is the prediction. More than 500 mobile smart phone will handle ‑‑ I mean, digital identity related transactions. Okay? Using your digital identity.
Next is basically AI for decision intelligence. Okay?
When it comes to AI, adoptions of AI is trending all over the world. And definitely we need governments ‑‑ I mean, they have to make decisions. We need to make it more intelligent, that's why we need data. Data, to make sense of data is basically we're bringing AI into the story to be able to help us ‑‑ okay ‑‑ with the prediction and to making the tough decision.
Okay? So by 2026 over 70% of the government agencies will use AI to enhance human and the decision‑making and will measure the productivity increases achieving that way. So again, bringing on AI to be able to elevate the level of decision‑making.
Next, as basically digital platform agility. When we're talking about platforms, we're not talking about websites or applications. We're talking about more power for cell phones that serves our purposes. It will be ‑‑ today as a government entity, all over the world ‑‑ okay ‑‑ I have challenges whereby to be able to scale tasks. To innovate.
Everybody's asking me as a government entity to be adjoined. To be able to accommodate the citizens request, citizens denounce, and to help with the technology demands and to cope with the security threats and cope with everything else, and to be a little bit of ‑‑ and to scale up too fast. At the same time.
So the digital ‑‑ that form agility is one of the trends that we see a lot of governments are thinking seriously and moving to the cloud and using high‑powered generated infrastructures to be able to accommodate the need for scalability and innovation and agility as well.
So 75% of ‑‑ by 2025, which is next year, immediately next week, in two week's time, okay, while 75% of the government will expand the adoption of platform services with an organisation, with hyper scale cloud providers delivering half of the workload. Okay?
This is the magic word here, basically by next your a lot of government entities, 70% of them, 75 ‑‑ 75 of them, will adopt ‑‑ will adopt cloud and ‑‑ cloud providers and hyper scalers to be able ‑‑ okay ‑‑ to move ‑‑ or to move their 50% of their workload to the cloud, okay, to be able to accommodate the innovation and the requirement and the agility as well. All right?
If you are living in the ‑‑ in the Kingdom, and if you're involved when one of the wonderful measures that measures the maturity of the digital transformation maturity of organizations in the Kingdom here, is pay us. Pay us is basically ‑‑ is one part of its mandate for next year, for basically the 50% mark that we're talking about here. The 50% mark. Of your workload needs to be on the cloud.
Okay?
So this is part of the trend, and we see it happening on a ‑‑ our ‑‑ and we want to sample governments like in Saudi Arabia.
Next, okay, a trend that we see all over. Again, a management story. All right? Data management story is basically where we ‑‑ we have to organise ourselves, okay, to be able to ‑‑ being ourselves, data ready to be able to accommodate any innovations, technological innovations. So when we are data ready, that means we know how to store our data, to manage it, know how to govern it, to make it available for any innovations that we have.
So by 2026 more than 60% of government organizations will prioritize investments in business process automation, up from 5%. Okay?
So currently the 35% adoption ‑‑ okay ‑‑ it will move up to 60% by 2026. All right? By adopting the ‑‑ what we call the process automation, which is basically making sure that our data is very well managed and ‑‑ I mean, and help us in our automation, the process automation.
Okay. Short and sweet. Okay?
This is what ‑‑ currently what we see as trends when it comes to business challenges and technological challenges that trends that the governments are seeing nowadays. Okay?
Thank you so much for bearing with me for the past few minutes. And thank ‑‑ it's been a pleasure. And one thing that is required for me to share with you is basically a survey. Okay?
This is something that, I mean, the organisers asked to do, is basically to pull up a survey on your phone.