GX Talks - Leadership Dialogues with Janet Napolitano, Mohamed Bin Taliah, Kate Gallego & Dr. Jonathan Reichental

As we can all imagine, the future of digital enablement, sustainability and continuous improvement in terms of how governments across the world deliver services to their citizens and businesses, may not look like what we had foreseen sometime back. Listen to global thought leaders and practitioners talk about what they have done, what they are planning to do and how they are thinking ahead to make the lives of people better than it was yesterday.

In this section, you can watch the entire session, see the highlights and read the session summary report. 

 

What happened?

GXTalks hosted a special virtual edition on “Delivering Public Services in a Post-Pandemic World - Leadership Lessons and Experiences from Changemakers,” where global policy leaders and public sector officials shared lessons learned and experience in government service delivery in the wake of COVID-19. This session was held in collaboration with the Center for Security in Politics at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, USA. The knowledge partners for this sesssion were Human Future and Dinar Standard.

Dr. Jonathan Reichental, CEO of Human Future and former CIO of Palo Alto, moderated the conversation between Janet Napolitano, the former US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kate Gallego, the Mayor of  Phoenix, Arizona, and HE Mohamed Bin Taliah, Chief of Government Services for the Government of UAE. 

GX Talks is a dialogue series created and hosted by the Prime Minister’s Office of the UAE. GX Talks unites government decision-makers, global practitioners and renowned innovators to re-examine and re-define government experience for the future. Watch more talks at GxTalks.com.

 

Why it matters?
The future of digital enablement, sustainability and continuous improvement in government service delivery may not look like what we had imagined just over a year ago. Listen to global thought leaders and practitioners talk about what they have done, what they are planning to do and how they are thinking ahead to make life better today than it was yesterday.

 

Selected quotes

• “The pandemic inspired people to try new forms of technology. The adoption curves are just going to be much steeper than we would have seen before COVID-19, because people tried so many new forms of technology.” — Kate Gallego, Mayor of Phoenix, AZ, USA
• “If a service is easy to provide, we will leave it to the private sector. But when something is difficult and expensive, we'll ask government to step up.” — Kate Gallego, Mayor of Phoenix, AZ, USA
• “We are seeing a very rapid uptake on all fronts when it comes to digital services. During this pandemic, we have shut down 50% of the federal government service centers due to the transformation to digital platforms.” — Mohamed Bin Taliah, Chief of Government Services, Government of UAE
• “We are working on transforming all of our services to be proactive services that preempt the customer’s needs, and at the same time, it is all digital, all the way.” — Mohamed Bin Taliah, Chief of Government Services, Government of UAE
• “The primary thing is to put the human first when designing any service ...and make it digital first.” — Mohamed Bin Taliah, Chief of Government Services, Government of UAE
• “You start with the individual to be served and you build out from there.” — Janet Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security, USA
• “Leaders need to make sure that they allow themselves not to be constrained by what's been done before, but to ask themselves ‘what if?’ Allowing oneself the time to think, and to imagine, helps empower better leadership.” — Janet Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security, USA
   

How to Watch?
Watch the full conversation on YouTube.

Watch the session highlights here.

 

Learn more about the future of government service delivery on GX.ae

 

Delivering public services in a post pandemic world – Leadership lessons and experiences from changemakers

Speaker Profiles:

Janet Napolitano is a Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. She served as the twentieth president of the University of California, the nation’s largest public research university with ten campuses, five medical centers, three affiliated national laboratories, and a statewide agriculture and natural resources program. Prior to joining the University of California, Professor Napolitano served as Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013. She is a former two-term Governor of Arizona, a former Attorney General of Arizona, and a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. In 2019, Napolitano published How Safe Are We? Homeland Security Since 9/11.  Professor Napolitano earned her B.S. degree, summa cum laude, in Political Science from Santa Clara University, and her J.D. from the University of Virginia. She is based in Berkeley, CA.

 

Kate Gallego is the Mayor of Phoenix, Arizona, the 5th largest city in the nation. In November 2020, she was returned to office by the highest number votes ever cast for a mayoral candidate in Phoenix. Mayor Gallego is the second elected female Mayor in Phoenix history and one of the youngest big city Mayors in the United States. She graduated from Harvard University and earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Before being elected to Phoenix City Council, Mayor Gallego worked on Economic Development for local utility company, Salt River Project. 

Mayor Gallego has focused on three key policy areas during her time in office: diversifying the economy, strengthening infrastructure investment, and working to make Phoenix a leader in sustainability. The year 2020 saw a significant addition to that list: ensuring the public health is protecting by adhering to the evolving science around the COVID-19 virus. Her record of proven results includes leading the campaign to pass Phoenix’s citywide transportation plan through 2050, which was the largest local government commitment to transportation infrastructure in the country when it passed in 2015.  She has led efforts on criminal justice reform and ensuring equal pay for equal work. Mayor Gallego is passionate about building a Phoenix that works for everyone and improving the quality of life for all Phoenicians. 

 

His Excellency Mohamed Bin Taliah is the Chief of Government Services of the United Arab Emirates Government, and the Assistant Director General for Government Services Sector at the Prime Minister’s Office in the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, where he oversees the Emirates Government Service Excellence Program aiming to raise the efficiency of government services by focusing on customers and enhancing government efficiency. He also oversees Khadamati system and the Best M-Government Award, an international annual award aiming to motivate government agencies and students to create innovative solutions in the field of smart phone applications, mobile phones and wearable smart devices.

Bin Taliah served in several managerial positions in both public and private sectors for more than 16 years in the field of IT, Cyber Security and governance. He worked as the Chief Support Services Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at Abu Dhabi Media Company, and was a Member of the Board of Directors at United Printing and Publishing. He also worked with Emirates Global Aluminium Company at the Program Management Office and Governance, where he led the development of the governance framework and risk management in IT sector. He developed a Cyber Security program and implemented the security surveillance of the industrial control system and critical infrastructure. In addition, he managed the Information Security Department at Thuraya Telecommunications Company, where he was in charge of the development and implementation of cyber security controls and information protection on the international communication and satellite networks. From 2014 to 2019, Bin Taliah served as the Assistant Director General for Corporate Services Sector at the Prime Minister’s Office in the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, where he oversaw developing strategic projects and initiatives in the Sector as well as cultivating a corporate culture aiming to achieve efficiency and excellence in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Bin Taliah holds an executive management degree in leadership and management from MIT Sloan School of Management, a M.Sc. degree in Project Management from the British University in Dubai, and a B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.

 

Dr. Jonathan Reichental is the founder of Human Future, a global business and technology advisory, investment, and education firm. Previous roles have included senior software engineering manager, director of technology innovation, and he has served as chief information officer at both O’Reilly Media and the City of Palo Alto, California. In 2013 he was recognized as one of the 25 doers, dreamers, and drivers in government in America. In 2016, he was named a top influential CIO in the United States and in 2017, he was named one of the top 100 CIOs in the world. He has also won a best CIO in Silicon Valley award and a national IT leadership prize. Reichental is a recognized global thought leader on a number of emerging trends including urban innovation, smart cities, sustainability, blockchain technology, data governance, the fourth industrial revolution, and digital transformation. He holds several degrees including a Ph.D. in Information Systems. He is an adjunct professor in the School of Management at the University of San Francisco and instructs at several other universities. Reichental regularly creates online video courses for LinkedIn Learning. He is a popular global keynote speaker and writer, including authoring a bestseller on the future of cities.

Please contact Chetan Choudhury for more details.