Past sessions

Welcome back to day two of FWD50! Join your hosts Alistair Croll and Hillary Hartley as they take the stage live from the Aberdeen Pavillion! See More.

In the last century, humanity has achieved remarkable progress through automation and mechanization. We've reduced global poverty, doubled human lifespan, and put the power of the internet into billions of pockets. Yet the journey from physical assembly lines to complex, worldwide information processes has created new challenges alongside its triumphs. See More.

In this digital space, as the world continues to evolve, so do the government’s priorities, opportunities, and challenges. Technologies like quantum computing and artificial intelligence are quickly transforming society in many ways. Governments must continue to lead throughout this evolution by embracing a digital-first mindset so that they stay relevant and trusted. See More.

In conversation with Estonia's Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs, Liisa-Ly Pakosta. See More.

Transforming services and organisations, starting small and learning, being led by users needs and making data driven decisions - that’s what so many of us want to be doing. But how often have you heard someone say “yeah that all sounds great in theory, but we can’t do that”? Anna Hirschfeld will talk about her experience of successfully delivering benefits modernisation in the UK in a truly radical way, and how the team overcame challenges everyone said they couldn't. See More.

Transparency used to be a strong value of the civic technology movement, but if it isn’t dead, it’s at least resting. See More.

Government spending on artificial intelligence (AI) has reached unprecedented levels. In fiscal year 2022, the United States government awarded over $2 billion in contracts to private companies that provide services that rely on AI, and total spending on AI has increased nearly 2.5 times since 2017. See More.

One of the largest IT shared services organizations in the world, Shared Services Canada (SSC) provides modern, reliable and secure technology services that enable Government of Canada organizations to deliver services to Canadians. See More.

Hear about all of the amaing things we have planned for your afternoon! See More.

It's time for a break! Take this opportunity to grab some food and catch up with, or meet your fellow attendees! See More.

The concept of identity is both simple and complex. In the physical world, we recognize other humans. We trust them, interact with them, respect their rights, and hold them accountable. Even as we age and change, we are still ourselves. See More.

In this interactive session you will learn that there is no such thing as a ‘normal’ user and why designing digital services for everyone is about much more than accessibility. Discover how the services we deliver often present barriers to the people who need them and explore ways we can remove those barriers so that no user is left behind. See More.

This talk will explore the pioneering CX Spaces Program initiated by Abu Dhabi, which focuses on creating forward-looking CX spaces. See More.

AI is transforming how we work, but the productivity promise won’t happen organically. Leveraging the full potential of AI requires critical reflection on what this technology can and cannot do, and where AI tools can best be applied within our workflows. See More.

It's time for a break! Take this opportunity to catch up with, or meet your fellow attendees! For our online audience this is a chance to join our speed networking! See More.

In an increasingly polarized society, how might we engage in dialogue and create a shared vision of the future together? See More.

What does it take to be an effective public service leader in today’s digital world? How have your own experiences shaped what you see as the leadership gaps when it comes to understanding how the digital world works? What do you wish your boss knew about Digital? What do you wish you knew? See More.

The challenges with procurement and a better path forward. See More.

Digital policy is hard--and getting harder. The Internet, the Cloud, and Machine Learning affect almost everything governments (and each of us) do. But often agencies disagree about what we should (and should not) do with the power they provide. What happens when different agencies (or different constituencies) disagree? See More.

Following on from the release this year of The Radical How in the UK, the team at Public Digital have been working on framing the learnings and approach for the Canadian public sector. See More.

Join your hosts as they kick off another amazing day of content! See More.

Every five years, the technology industry goes through a Hype Cycle. See More.

Maryland's Governor Wes Moore has been leading a “Data-Driven, Heart Led” transformation of the state, directing his State’s agencies to use data to make Maryland safer, more affordable, and more competitive. See More.

In this talk, Cale will draw upon his experience in both the private and public sector working on enterprise/licensed products to share with attendees in similar spaces how to effectively balance competing interests among groups when their program is developing a service. See More.

Estonia, along with several other Nordic countries, are consistently ranked as no1 in delivering digital public services to its citizen with high public approval and trust. See More.

"Software" is a broad category. The calculator on your phone operates very differently from global, complex systems like online maps, cloud computing, or malware defense. If the calculator stops working, or gives a wrong result, it's unlikely to spell disaster or cost lives; yet many modern systems are not only complex, but central civilization as we know it. See More.

Berlin’s CDO Martina Klement announced the city’s “Digital Competence Check”, inspired by the European Union’s Digital Competence Framework. This underscores a pressing need: in the latest FWD50 Content Survey, it asked “should government employees be required to pass a digital literacy test?”. 71% of respondents checked “yes”. See More.

When it comes to championing famously complicated digital transformation projects at the federal level, there are few incentives for public service leaders to do things differently. See More.

It's time for a break! Take this opportunity to grab some food and catch up with, or meet your fellow attendees! See More.

Building off his morning keynote, join Andres Raieste as he pulls together an incredible panel discussion looking at best practices in building trust in public digital services in Estonia and Canada. See More.

While “bureaucrat” is sort of a bad word, public servants are the force that run governments – often extremely well. This talk looks at the often-overlooked narrative of government effectiveness, especially when citizens need it most: in times of crisis. By exploring how governments showed up and saved the day during some of the most complex crises of our time, this talk looks at the themes and patterns underlying these successful government interventions and how these lessons might equip future public officials for the crises to come. See More.

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, user experience should be a driving force behind technology acquisitions. See More.

It's time for a break! Take this opportunity to catch up with, or meet your fellow attendees! For our online audience this is a chance to join our speed networking! Just click on the "Networking" icon on the left hand side of your screen. See More.

There's plenty written about cultivating an innovation mindset, building a culture of change, and becoming an Intrapreneur. But if you want to see real change, the answer's simple: Start. See More.

Does Agile work… for all projects? …with a team that’s not used to working that way? See More.

Last year, Public Digital wrote the Radical How, a guide for leaders who find themselves in environments that expect them to plan all aspects of delivery upfront but who know that this approach is the riskiest. See More.

FWD50 is in its seventh year. What started as a technology conference has transformed into a global community that tackles culture, transformation, and service delivery. See More.

On the night of one of the most consequential elections in modern memory, we'll take in all the perspectives—literally and politically from left to right—as we watch the results come in. See More.

We're known for our unusual formats and out of the box thinking and we've brought that into the design of our first post-pandemic, fully in person day. Join your hosts, Hillary and Alistair as they explain what's in store. See More.

While we think we’re rational creatures, science shows that our emotions are in charge of most decisions. It’s easy to change someone’s mind—as long as they agree with you. Fortunately, there are techniques such as Deep Canvassing that can help you see another perspective, and even find common ground with your opponents. See More.

Recent months have seen the dissolution of Digital Service departments in some jurisdictions, and larger departments absorbing others. Is the era of the standalone digital service department over? See More.

It's time for a break! Take this opportunity to grab some food and catch up with, or meet your fellow attendees! See More.

This interactive session puts our faculty in the hotseat. We crowdsource questions, upvote the best ones, and let the audience answer. Then some of FWD50's speakers riff on those responses as they scroll past across the screen. See More.

Cyber attacks are on the rise worldwide. The World Economic Forum estimates that the global cost of cybercrime will reach nearly $24 trillion by 2027. Just this year, Canada faced complicated and intelligent attacks on central infrastructure and local authorities which threatened the delivery of public services. See More.

It's time for a break! Take this opportunity to grab some food and catch up with, or meet your fellow attendees! See More.

Is government's role to build, or to operate? It took the government to get us to the moon; today, we're dependent on industry to service space stations. See More.

Join us for this inclusive and interactive community gathering where the goal is to skip the small talk with your conference peers. We will get comfortable diving into deeper conversations and forge genuine connections with one another. This community gathering event isn't just about networking - it's about taking what we've learned throughout FWD50 2024 and activating it. It's about sparking collaborations and fostering a sense of belonging within the global innovators community. It's about you, making the most of this conference. See More.

It's time for a break! Take this opportunity to grab some food and catch up with, or meet your fellow attendees! See More.

Let's review the ideas and ratings of Impactor as we wrap up our in-person day. See More.