Public Digital #45 🌏 Bangladesh's multi-sectoral response, and other stories⭐

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15 May 2020 #45

Hello friends, hope you’re hanging in there.

As he reported Microsoft’s quarterly earnings last month, CEO Satya Nadella stated that “we’ve seen 2 years’ worth of digital transformation in 2 months.” True. Industries and businesses of all sizes have been forced to innovate to survive.

It got me thinking about the UAE cinema setting up drive-ins 🎥, the tiny UK wine shop moving their tastings online and collaborating with local chefs to deliver dine-ins 🍷and British GQ getting Robert Pattinson to take a selfie for the cover of their ‘creativity in the time of quarantine’ issue 📷 (a technologically-chaotic interview follows).

So many businesses have crashed through long-standing institutional boundaries to redefine how they do what they do. Fingers crossed they’ll take their new-found confidence forward – shame it’s taken a crisis for them to find it.

Amy
@amymcnichol

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Ways of working

👑 Bangladesh’s crisis response = gold standard 👑

The coronavirus response from A2i, the team responsible for digital transformation in Bangladesh, is multi-sectoral. It includes:

Converting the national information helpline into a ‘healthline’ by putting a triage system in place for citizens who are worried about their health or at risk of being infected with the virus.
Training over 40,000 doctors, medical students, nurses and other health workers through an e-Learning system so they can give advice to high-risk citizens over the phone. Training took a matter of days.
Developing the Doctor's Pool app to handle the surge of people needing medical attention. Hundreds of doctors are now available at any point.
Creating a card with a QR code that acts as a financial ID (for people without a national ID) so government can map citizen bank accounts and distribute emergency benefits where they’re most needed.
Setting up small banks in the currently vacant shops – possible because the government had a scalable integrated service delivery platform in place.
Repurposing Parliament TV to broadcast specially-recorded educational shows made by teachers and education advisors in recording studios.

Plus there are plans to launch a technology platform to raise funds for families who have become financially vulnerable.

Incredible Bangladesh. 🙌

How? They're repurposing what they've already got. “We are using tools and technologies that already exist by integrating and repurposing them,” said A2i leader, Anir Chowdhury. He set out the country’s plethora of plans to respond on 27 March.

(Also helps that they have an established, multidisciplinary digital innovation unit (a2i), focused on simplifying government, with experience in working across ministries 😉)

🔐 Security basics
A post by security consultancy, Tradecraft, says the first step towards being more secure is knowing what you have.

↔️ Charitable donation: the gift of best practice
Shared venture, ‘Service recipes for charities’, is a set of guides aimed at helping the voluntary sector reuse and learn from one another’s services. At the moment, the focus is on recipes that address problems charities are facing during the crisis — for example how to get consent or verify an identity. Longer term, the project will help teams save time and money, and people in need will get help more quickly.

State of technology

💃🏿TikTokTrouble
The app was in bother in the US because users’ names, pictures and videos were public by default, including those with accounts for under-13s. TikTok agreed to fix it but children’s groups say there’s still not enough in place to stop young users using a fake date of birth. TikTok was downloaded 11 million times by new users in the US in March – this post unpicks 5 risks of the Chinese-owned app.

Contact tracing (again, sorry 😬)
Still on the cards in many places, in various formats and with differing ethics.

Hong Kong is mandating tracking bracelets – wear them or face jail. Today the Thai launch their ‘Thais will be victorious’ app (a whiff of Trumpian ego here) and say it’s voluntary and the only data they collect is a phone number. In the UK, secret NHS files have revealed plans for tracing app. ICO published recommendations on designing contact tracing apps that minimise the privacy risk.

And most baffling is this job ad which requires successful applicants to use Windows 10 and Internet Explorer 11. People had a lot to say about this. Understandably so.

Digital government

🇨🇦 This post on good (or bad, depending on how you read it) numbers on big IT project cost/failure rates from Canada. 70% of projects smaller than $10M were completed, on schedule, whereas only 35% of projects over $100M were. Morale of the story: go small.

🇪🇪 The Estonian government launched the ‘Püsime terved!’ (‘stay healthy’) campaign this week after restrictions were eased. The site has 617 FAQs (‘the driver coughed and looked in bad health, what should I do?') 😟 but “authorities are continuously updating it with the latest verified information.”👍 Good that it’s easy for them to use at least. The FAQs do appear to have been part of the campaign rather than an attempt to fix previously ambiguous comms.

🇻🇳 Speaking of campaign success, the handwashing song from the Vietnamese Health Department is pushing 46 million YouTube views.

🇬🇧 UK MPs cast their first remote votes in the Commons Chamber, this week. Here’s how the app is supposed to work. But reports of it crashing and generally not doing as intended had been circulating. There’s been worry that the system is at risk from hacking (two-factor authentication issues), and worse still, the law and order of the UK being at risk because "Anyone can press the button – it could be a spouse, a partner or a child [voting through laws],” (– unnamed Tory MP). 💭

🇺🇸 We’ve praised the Californian government coronavirus response site many times – it’s scalable, accessible, stable, easy to update and took 4 days to build. Now they’ve summarised what they did and why in their own words. Oh, and they’re hiring.

News from Public Digital

We can help
We have many years of experience helping teams and their wider orgs reorganise, innovate and deliver quickly so they can look forward with more confidence. Drop ben@public.digital a line if you’d like some support.

📣 New jobs klaxon
Citizens Advice is looking for a Director of Technology – someone to help them be “bolder using tech for good”.

The EdTech Hub is looking for a product manager, a full-stack developer, and a content designer. Contract and permanent opportunities available. Email opportunities@edtechhub.org with your CV and availability if you’re interested..

Sign up, learn
2 of our affiliates Giles (comms specialist) and Sarah (founder of Content Design London) are teaming up to talk for ‘lone voice content designers’. It’s on Monday (18 May) so sign up pronto.

On the PD blog
Introducing Angie, one of our Principal consultants. And here in Spanish, her native tongue.

Introducing Clement, our affiliate based in Rwanda.

Coronavirus: talking to digital teams in Latin America and the Caribbean, a post by Dan.

We’re all in beta now, Mike’s post (originally published on the Financial Times’ Sifted site).

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