Digital Government: Where We Are and Where We Are Going
This talk by Prof. David Eaves is part of our Winter 2020 Policy Lecture series. These academic talks are intended for McGill students, alumni and faculty.
Despite some progress, Canada, along with many countries, remains in the early days of digital government. Most states remain a long way off from having the capability of leading private sector actors such as Google or Amazon. However, over time governments will acquire these capabilities as they seek to improve their ability to serve the public. In this talk, David will briefly outline how leading governments are using digital governance to transform themselves, and then focus on a number of critical policy and governance challenges that will emerge in a world of digital governments.
About David Eaves
David Eaves is a public policy entrepreneur and expert in information technology and government. He is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds of municipalities and is used by tens of millions of residents.
In 2009, as an adviser to the Office of the Mayor of Vancouver, David proposed and helped draft the Open Motion which created one of the first open data portals in Canada and the world. He subsequently advised the Canadian government on its open data strategy where his parliamentary committee testimony laid out the core policy structure that has guided multiple governments approach to the issue. He has gone on to work with numerous local, state, and national governments advising on technology and policy issues, including sitting on Ontario's Open Government Engagement Team in 2014–2015.
In addition to working with government officials, David served as the first Director of Education for Code for America — training each cohort of fellows for their work with cities. David has also worked with 18F and the Presidential Innovation Fellows at the White House providing training and support.
With a background in negotiation, David also advises non-profits and advocacy groups on critical negotiations. He developed and helped implement collaborative strategies for open source communities such as Drupal and Mozilla. He served as a negotiation adviser to a coalition of Canadian environmental government organizations during two years of negotiations with the Forestry Products Association of Canada (FPAC) which helped cement the ground-breaking Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. David subsequently served as a mediator and facilitator on critical implementation committees for the agreement.
In 2018, he was named one of 20 most influential on Apolitical’s "World’s 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government."
