Digital Forum "Digital Bridge 2023"

On 12-13 October, the digital forum "Digital Bridge 2023" was held in Astana (Republic of Kazakhstan), within the framework of which the Head of the International Laboratory of Digital Transformation in Public Administration Evgeny Styrin and Research Fellow Pavel Suvorkov held a meeting with the head of the "Digital Government Support Center" of the Republic of Kazakhstan Rustem Bigari.

At the meeting, Evgeny Styrin presented the laboratory, told about the priorities of its development. A number of issues of mutual cooperation were also raised. The parties agreed to form a research program, clarify joint topics for writing scientific articles, and take part in possible grant competitions on the topic of digital transformation in public administration in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The parties agreed on the need to formalize their relations by concluding a memorandum of understanding. The focus of mutual cooperation is the exchange of experience, business trips of specialists, internships, the possibility of training Kazakhstani specialists in postgraduate studies in public administration at the HSE University. The "Digital Government Support Center" of the Republic of Kazakhstan has accumulated large amounts of data describing transformational processes in the public sector based on digital technologies. Data-based management projects, the introduction of artificial intelligence, infrastructure technologies for safe and reliable access of citizens to state information systems remain priorities. The parties expressed the opinion that joint comparative studies of Russia and Kazakhstan on the topic of digital transformation of public administration will benefit both countries, will allow them to form new knowledge in social and technological dimensions about the peculiarities of changes in the public sector under the influence of technology. Also effective is the participation of the parties in joint seminars on topics of interest.

Within the framework of the Digital Bridge forum, participants were shown a number of solutions from the GovTech sphere. In particular, the implementation of the national decision on digital notary, on access to public services through various types of identification, including biometrics and electronic digital signature. Within the framework of the round tables of the forum, special attention was focused on the features of data-based public administration. Representatives of the authorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan demonstrated cases of the formation of proactive services in various industries (employment, pension accruals, military duty, etc.).

An important trend remains the high interest of Kazakhstan in increasing its place in various international ratings of digital transformation of public administration, e-government.

A special place in the digital ecosystem of the Republic of Kazakhstan is occupied by a super-application Kaspi.kz, which in its functionality is comparable to the capabilities of the national portal of public services of the republic. The forum demonstrated the possibilities of this super-application as a mechanism for effective partnership between the state and business to provide high-quality digital services.