Why is this one of the most digital governments

Olexander Borneakov, while circling a corner in Kiev on 24 February 2022, remembers driving in a gun battle.

It was a day of the entire -scale invasion of Ukraine in Russia, and the Russian suboters were fighting with the Ukrainian security forces in the Ukrainian capital.

“Shooting, cars are burning, armored vehicles are burning … when we eventually pass … there were many bodies.”

As a government minister, he was ordered to drive hundreds of kilometers west and continue his work at a safe place.

Starting from 2019, the Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, Bornikov, was managing the shift of government services from Ukraine, which was done in a new app called DIIA (Ukrainian Word for Action).

The idea was that the citizens could use everything necessary from their mobile phones; Driving license, marriage certificate, household chores, and more.

He started with the driver’s license in 2019, which was quite popular, but the DIIA app was boosted during the epidemic, when the Covid Certificate was added.

“This is given to one and probably two or three million people,” is called Bornkov.

Despite the war, Diia continues to develop.

Today the app hosts 40 government services, including tax payment, car registration and marriage applications.

Perhaps more fun – Ukrainians can make local selections for Eurovizon through the app, including selecting national jury members and selecting national representatives.

Additionally, 30 documents are available on the app; Flick through Bornkov, my gun license and car insurance for me.

There is also a DIIA portal, which can be accessed through a browser on a computer, with 130 services for citizens and businesses.

Total DIAs have 22.7 million users.

All this, according to Bornayakov, makes Ukraine one of the major countries when it comes to digital government services – in his opinion Ukraine was laid beyond Estonia, which is well known to its digital government.

“I have not seen anyone else doing better than us, perhaps except Saudi Arabia, and it belongs to the number and approach of both users.”

For the last three years, despite fighting the Russian invaders, Ukraine is able to make such progress, how is this progress doing?

According to Bornayakov, a part of it is the right task force.

He says that Ukraine has been a popular destination for companies in search of outsourcing Ukraine IT projects for the last 20 years.

They estimate that Ukraine has 300,000 software developers, many of which have worked on complex projects for large international companies.

“There are many technical and experienced engineers who can do fantastic things,” they say.

They are not expensive as anywhere else in the world. Therefore, they estimate that the development of DIA was spent between five and 10 million dollars.

They say that software developers in the UK will have to spend five or 10 times more.

David Ews University College is the Associate Professor of the Digital Government at London, and has studied efforts by governments around the world to make his services digital.

He says that the key to Ukraine’s success was worked before creating the app. Using the software used by Estonia, Ukraine created a data exchange, which made it easier for data flow from government departments and organizations.

The DIIA app was then added to the top of the data exchange.

“If you have this flexibility to move the data, it becomes very easy to build new services, as citizens can just request their permission to access it, instead of asking for the same information again, you can simply request their permission,” says Pro Eve.

Therefore, when applying for an advantage, users do not need to re -enter their address, place of birth, martial position, and their income can be tested against their tax records.

Not only does it reduce administrative burden, but it means that the government does not need to design a system to re -recolve, store and process this information.

That flexibility allowed Ukraine to add new services to face the challenges of war.

“We actually offer about 15 different services related to war,” called Mr. Borniakov.

For example, users can apply for compensation if their property was damaged or destroyed. Citizens can also report the location of Russian soldiers through the app.

Pro Ews also states that Ukraine’s war with Russia has inspired the government to modernize.

“When you are at a warfare, there is a feeling of urgency. The urgency of serving becomes more important than the rules that sometimes travel to bureaucracy,” they say.

According to Professor Eves, Ukraine has been placed in countries leading to efforts to digitize government services.

They feel that Denmark is probably moving with both a solid infrastructure, the range of services and the well -designed user interfaces.

So what does the future hold? Ukraine is developing the AI ​​system that Bornayakov has the ability to interact with the government.

He sees AI guiding a user through various stages to see what they want.

“We want to redefine the approach to government services,” they say.

While Professor Eves are excited about the possibility of AI in government services, he recommends taking precautions.

Developers need to ensure that they have reliable data to train AI and then make sure the system can learn what the correct answers are.

“AI is like a Ferrari. You can do amazing things, but you have good roads. A dirt is very difficult to run a Ferrari on the road, isn’t it?”