My Govtech 2013
Review
This
morning I found myself reminiscing about some of the biggest events that were on
the ICT calendar in 2013. One of the
events that I attended was the annual government ICT pilgrimage, viz; Govtech
2013 which was held on 21 – 23 October 2013 in Cape Town.
I
was trying to remember as to how this year’s Govtech fared compared to the
previous years.
What went well?
Marketing:
I believe SITA’s marketing unit did well this year. The event was
well marketed with newspapers and TV ads, social media and web presence.
Trevor Manuel speech: The keynote address by Minister Trevor
Manuel was one of the highlights, with him outlining what he saw as focus areas
for government. From his speech he
indicated that we need to tackle the following challenges:-
e-government,
education systems, bandwidth challenges, identity management and security,
health care systems, billing challenges, use of GIS, matters of dignity and
rights as well as most importantly, open source software.
Attendance:
Without knowing the numbers, at face value, it looked like we had
more attendance this year than the previous year. Impressing was also the attendance of
sessions by candidates. Perhaps the
unfriendly Cape Town weather had something to do with it.
The cultural programme: Govtech will no be Govtech without
entertainment. Whereas parties were in
short supply this year, Dimension Data and Vodacom had the geeks occupied until
the early hours of the morning.
What went wrong?
The programme: there was last minute shifting of the dates
of the conference. This created confusion as even private sector candidates
attended the Techniclick workshop which precedes the official conference every
year. Techniclick is only reserved for government employees.
No show by the premier and MPSA for the
opening: I still don’t know the
reasons for failure to show up as per the programme to open the conference, but
I believe this was very disappointing to the candidates.
Minimal role played by the GITOC on the main
plenary programme: Seeing that
Govtech is a collaborative effort between GITOC, SITA and the DPSA, I feel the
GITOC Chairperson should have been given a chance to address the conference at
the main plenary, outlining our achievements since the last Govtech and also
setting the scene for our plans going forward.
What can be improved?
Entertainment lineup: We must acknowledge
that most candidates attend Govtech to have fun, distress and network. Perhaps the lineup of artists that will be
performing at Govtech should also be advertised as part of the marketing
strategy.
An African ICT Programme: The next conference should perhaps have
speaks predominantly from the African continent. There are plenty of great ICT case studies
that we can learn from.
I am
sure there are other brilliant suggestions from other attendants, and if SITA
calls for them, then we will have a better Govtech next year.
