GovTech Prize Honours Global Solutions for Pressing Challenges at WGS 2024
The ninth edition of the GovTech Prize 2024, part of the World Governments Summit (WGS), presents a unique model that celebrates the contributions of technology pioneers in providing service solutions that anticipate future challenges and enhance the quality of human life.
The prize, managed by the Emirates Government Service Excellence Programme (EGSEP) at the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, continues its mission to encourage pioneering students, researchers, government agencies and institutions, private sector companies and startups to develop innovative solutions and explore new opportunities for a better future for humanity.
The GovTech Prize embodies the visions of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, in promoting innovation in the development of services and future government work and employing technology to enhance human life.
The Prize is given to government entities, whether central or local, around the world to acknowledge creative and innovative solutions that tackle important challenges and create outstanding government service experiences. The award aims to recognise solutions that use new and efficient approaches and techniques with technology to solve problems affecting a large part of the population and provide real benefits, with the potential to expand geographically across borders.
The GovTech Prize 2024 is to recognise innovations in creating human centric government services experiences in the following categories: Educational Services, Healthcare Services, AI-Powered Government Services, and Inclusive Digital Transformation.
The WGS has adopted a new model for selecting innovative experiences and success stories in the award categories. It has partnered with a number of global partners to monitor and study 250 experiences around the world that were evaluated by a global jury of experts and specialists in the fields and categories of the award. Approximately 50 government experiences reached the final stage of the evaluation and were re-evaluated to select the best of them to win the prize.
Eligibility for the prize requires that the solution should be in a mature stage and should be adopted by at least one government entity, and it should be related to technology innovation. Moreover, the solution should have been developed and/or adopted recently; within the last 24 months. Finally, the solution should align and/or belong to one of the categories advertised for the current year award.
The evaluation criteria include the following:
- Level of innovation: measuring the adoption of novel approaches and techniques leveraging technology to provide solutions in a streamlined and more efficient manner
- Impact: describing the ability for the solution to solve sticky problems affecting a large part of the population, providing tangible benefits
- Maturity: evaluating the readiness and robustness of the solution and its level of adoption
- Scalability and replicability: assessing the possible extension and adoption of the solution to broader audiences/geographies and/or other contexts
- Sustainability: considering both the cost-effectiveness and financial viability of the solution, as well as its ecological impact and footprint
Since its launch in 2013, the WGS has focused on foreseeing future governments and building a better future for humanity and has contributed to the establishment of a new system of international partnerships based on inspiring and anticipating future governments.
News Source: Emirates News Agency