34 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government Innovation Fellowship
We are joined by three panelists for this episode, including, Asim Ishaq Khan , Deputy Director of Projects at KPITB (http://www.kpitb.gov.pk/), Emcet Oktay Tas, Senior Social Development Specialist at the World Bank (https://www.worldbank.org/), as well as Sheba Najmi, Founder and Executive Director at Code for Pakistan (http://codeforpakistan.org/). We'll be talking about the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government Innovation Fellowship, which was formed by a partnership of their organizations.<br><br>### Resources and Shoutouts:<br>- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government Innovation Fellowship(http://codeforpakistan.org/programs/fellowship/_<br>- Jen Palhka's Ted talk(https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_pahlka_coding_a_better_government)<br>- From Poverty to Power (https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/)<br><br>##### Music Credit: Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol(http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)
Top Keywords
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- pakistan 0.012
- citizens 0.008
- youth 0.008
- fellows 0.007
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- civic 0.006
- technology 0.006
- skills 0.005
Transcript
Hello. I'm Ryan Cook, and this is Civic Tech Chat, a podcast about the civic technology movement. We seek to harness the power technology has to improve the delivery of public services to people everywhere. Awesome. Amjet, Sheba, thank you all so much for coming on to Civic Tech Chat this week. Could each of you, introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about what you do? Sheba, would you like to get us started?
Sure. Thank you so much for having me and for having us on this program. We're super excited. So my name is Sheba Najmeen. I, am the founder and executive director of a nonprofit organization called Code for Pakistan, which is, trying to introduce civic innovation in Pakistan and, essentially with the notion that government has to work well for everyone, and citizens have to be a part of that, to to bridge the gap between government and citizens through improving, service delivery. That is what I do on evenings and weekends. My day job is at, LinkedIn. I manage a couple of, user experience design teams. And, you know, I've been involved in the civic tech world for about, seven years now. I started, in that world. I came from a technology background, but my introduction to that world was through Code for America, which is a nonprofit in The United States that's trying to pair citizen citizen technologists with government in order to to make government services more user centered. So I did that year long public service fellowship program in 2012, and that was my foray into starting Code for Pakistan.
So my name is, Emjat Tas. I'm a senior economist at the World Bank. Many listeners would know we are the largest development organization in the world. We provide a wide array of financial products and technical assistance to developing countries on virtually every aspect of development, from economic reforms to infrastructure investments and to to social programs like on education and health. I work in the social development department of the World Bank, which focuses on sort of putting people first in in the development process. So I do lots of research and I manage projects in developing countries, projects that try to empower disadvantaged groups, try to build social cohesion, and make institutions, accountable to their citizens. So, what we'll be discussing today, I think, falls at the intersection of all the things that that, social development is all about at the World Bank. I'm relatively new to working in Pakistan. I've only been, working there for about a year, But it's it's great that we have this opportunity to share our experiences and and our thoughts with you and the listeners.
Thank you, Ryan, for having us over. My name is Asim Ashaq, and I'm working as deputy director of projects at the Khabib Bufthunfa Information Technology Board, which is basically a provincial government organization established for the promotion of information technology in the province of Khabib Bufthunfa. I've got a background in technology as well. So, what I'm doing at the IT board is, now that I've spent two years there, I'm mainly looking after all the flagship IT programs that we've executed over the years within the province. And besides that, I've been contributing to policy formulation, organizational strategy, and project planning. We're mainly focused around four thematic areas, which is digital governance, digital access, digital skills, and digital economy. So all of our programs, all of our projects that we, conceptualize and we execute are along these four different verticals. The program that we'll be talking about today falls under the governance as well as the skills vertical.
One of the things we try to talk about on these episodes is this idea of personal why. You know, what it is that drives you to get up each morning to then do what you do. Emjet, would you like to get us started in telling us what your personal why is and and how it drives you?
That's that's a great question. Well, I'm originally from Northern Cyprus, which is a small unrecognized state, in the Mediterranean region. And I grew up in an ethnically divided island in a family that was displaced by war. So that's definitely played a huge role in my career choices and, wanting to work with disadvantaged groups, with youth, with children, with people coming from sort of minority ethnic backgrounds, etcetera. So, I would definitely trace, my focus on social development issues despite having been trained as an economist, back to my, my upbringing in Cyprus.
Awesome. Would you like to go next? My personal why. Well, to be honest, I've always longed for a systematic and transparent form of governance that puts citizen facilitation at its core. You know, growing up in Pakistan and then, you know, traveling abroad for my, for my studies, I I felt this that, you know, unfortunately, this this has been long missing in our country. Policies are formulated, but then never implemented. Schemes are developed, but then never executed. So, you know, I strongly believe that technology plays an imperative role in transforming the way, you know, we govern and the way we live. So I desire to help, my province in particular and Pakistan in general to get on that road to a systematic digital transformation. This is what drives me to do what I what I do.
And, Sheba, would you like to share yours as well?
Absolutely. I think my background is, similar to Assen's in the sense that I grew up in Pakistan. And, and growing up in a country like Pakistan, it's very, clear to see the dichotomies that exist and, the inequities that exist. And, you know, the people who have the least are the ones who suffer the most when it comes to public services and having access. I went to an all girls school in Karachi, Pakistan and, and, you know, was very sort of lucky to have these strong, women teachers who, instilled in us this sense of public responsibility, and duty. And I remember as I was growing up, I wanted to I just felt like, oh, I wanna be prime minister so I can just fix everything in the country. It would be so easy. And, you know, growing older, definitely politics and and that is not the way I wanna go, but governance is something that is very near and dear to my heart similar to what Asinsab mentioned. And, and how do we put citizens at the heart of it, at the forefront of, as recipients of, public service, but also as contributors to it. You know, how do we make government work well for everyone? That's kind of my personal why I think in the in the private sector, as technologists in particular, we have access to a way of thinking and technical skills and design skills that generally don't tend to, be broadly spread in government. And so how can we bring those skills to bear, because government is something we must do together?
That's my personal why. Thank you to each of you for sharing your your personal whys. I I think that hearing that ends up being pretty informative for the listener and trying to understand what the you know, why you want to go out and do the things that you're trying to do. Speaking of things that can inspire or or inform, one thing we also like to ask about on the podcast is whether there's a piece of media, whether it's print, something that's a video, a podcast, or something in between that you find especially, you know, inspirational or informative. Shiva, would you like to start us off and and give us what what that is for you?
Yeah. Thank you. For me, that really, I think one thing that encapsulates, this belief that I have in governance and and, user centered citizen centered government is, Jennifer Parker's TED Talk, which is called Coding a Better Government. Jennifer Parker is the founder, of Code for America, which really, in many ways, was the start of this movement in, 2011. This this notion that, you know, it quotes Tim O'Reilly in the TED talk, which is that government is at its core what we do together that we can't do alone. And and the fact that we can scale government by strengthening civil society. As citizens, we're not just consumers of government. We're more than that. We we are not gonna fix government until we fix citizenship by using our hands to participate in creating solutions, not just our voices to complain. And so, that TED talk was extremely inspiring. It encapsulates all of it. And, actually, Jennifer gave that talk the year I was a fellow at Code for America.
I don't have any such, preference, to be honest. But, if I were to, you know, just briefly describe what, what I find inspirational is that, you know, I I I I prefer reading, as opposed to videos and podcasts. So, for me, it could be a piece of newspaper, an article that, you know, that that, you know, addresses to my needs, and that that is, like, in, you know, that's, basically, aligned with my thought process. So so I don't really have a preference as such, but, you know, whatever I can find, whatever I can derive inspiration from, I use that for my good.
I guess somewhere in between what, Shiva and Asim have have said, I do read a lot. It's also part of my job, I guess, to read and and working on thematic issues as opposed to sort of drilling into one academic discipline, I read a lot across disciplines. So like I mentioned before, I'm an economist, but I I work with and read a lot of sociology work, anthropologists, work by social psychologists, etcetera. And I do enjoy some, podcasts, for development. My colleague, Owen Barter, from the Center for Global Development, actually, has actually put together a really nice list of development podcasts. So I, you know, during jogging or during my commute, I I listen to, sort of various updates from different parts of the region just to just to stay on top of things. And, also, there's this blog by, Duncan Green. It's called From Poverty to Power. This is on the Oxfam website. I really enjoy reading, reading his work as well. He he serves as a platform for, development researchers from many disciplines to come together and talk about innovations regardless of sector. Sometimes it's about technology. Sometimes it's about targeting of social programs. Sometimes it's about poverty, gender inequalities, etcetera. So, I really enjoy going through his blog as well. Having heard a bit about what drives,
inspires, and informs each of you, I think we can go ahead and shift gears into our main topic. And that is that we're here today to talk a bit about a, government innovation fellowship that y'all are partnered and working together on. Can I get a volunteer to give us kind of the high level, maybe elevator pitch of the program and to kinda introduce us to it?
The, KP government innovation fellowship program is, a program that started as a three way partnership between the KP government, the KP IT board, the World Bank, and Code for Pakistan. And, the genesis of, of this fellowship program was was very, in a very lean startup way. It was this, you know, the the KPIT board and the World Bank and Code for Pakistan came together along with other partners to run a civic hackathon, in Peshawar, which was Peshawar's first civic hackathon. And and in that, there were a lot of ideas that, that emerged both from the government as well as from, regular citizens and students and technologists. Those ideas we took forward into, a a fellowship program, a six month fellowship program that is, very kind of structured. It's, it's focused on both civic engagement and government innovation. So it's about creating user centered, digital services that actually, help the government provide better services to citizens and help the government innovate in its own processes. One of the goals is to bridge the gap between citizens and the government and to enable citizens to reimagine their relationship with the government too by getting these young technologists into the program who've never necessarily thought about working in government before. Many of those graduates, of these of the fellowship program, have either joined the government or, joined the civic space, whether it's civic startups or Code for Pakistan, or gone on into technology, but forever remain changed, I think, transformed by their experience, in this as much more engaged, citizens. They also they go through this program in in a way where they, are really focused on user research with citizens, which informs how we design projects with the citizen at the heart of all design. Sometimes the user is actually somebody who is working in government, and has to sort of, use systems. And so the user centered design process, the use of agile methodology, those really, kind of center, in this program. We have so far run right now, it's the fifth cycle of the program. There are 20, full time fellows, who are partnered with various government departments for a period of six months.
Looking through the program materials, it seems to cite some key aims or points. Things like citizens and government collaborating together, the use of agile methodologies, and pushing for civic engagement. How do those ideas inform how the program is run?
If you think about, the there's this notion of the lean startup methodology, which is that in and I'll take I'll zoom out, and I'll give you an example from The United States just because I happen to know this example. But, to give you, like, a really high profile example that you might be familiar with, the Affordable Health Care Act in The United States, That is something that will go down in history as president Obama's signature achievement. It's something that presidents in The United States were trying to get done for seventy five years, and they failed, and he was able to get it done. But it almost fell apart, not because of obstructionism in congress, but it almost fell apart because of a broken website. So if you think about that, the most significant legislation in modern American history almost failed because the website didn't work. Of course, Zobala was able to to bring some of the most talented technologists from around the country to go to DC and fix it, and they worked around the clock for a hundred days straight and until they got it working, and they were able to change the sign up flow from 15 screens to three, which meant that millions more people could now sign up for health care. But that's the impact that technology can now or and does now have on, on service delivery for citizens and the way citizens experience government. Right? This disaster was not an anomaly. In The United States alone, like, 94% of federal government IT projects that cost more than $10,000,000 are either delivered late or they're delivered over budget or they just don't work. And and like I said earlier, like, those who have the least are are hit the hardest by these broken service deliveries. So that is just the framing of of, the problem. What we're trying to do is to bring in, the lean start up methodology or, you know, agile methodologies like you mentioned and user centered design and design thinking process because those are the ways to mitigate against large government, and it doesn't have to be government, but large projects that are built according to some specifications without really having the user or the citizen at in this case, at the heart of it. And ultimately, they they fail and they cost a ton. Right? And and there are examples like this all over the world. So what this fellowship program is trying to do, is take a leaf from other fellowship programs from around the world. Code for Python, for instance, is a an official partner of the Code for All network, which, Code for America is another partner. But what we do is we share learnings with each other. And so we're trying to take these these new ideas and these new, concepts of how you create services or how you create projects, in a way that mitigates risk of failure, by actually involving the end user, in this case, the citizen, in the process through user research and things like that. So in this fellowship program, not only do we do that, but we also teach the fellows how to do that. Right? So it's also creating these technologists that are now savvy in design thinking processes and agile methodologies. As I said earlier, one of the major goals of the program is to is to bridge the gap between citizens and the government and to enable citizens to reimagine their relationship with the government. So we we in the fellowship program, we hold design thinking workshops. We bring in government focal people as well because it's really important that this is not just these set of fellows who learn how to do it, but that, that, that this spread, you know, these processes and ways of thinking and and development, spread within government. And, the focal people from each government department will come and talk to the fellows, regularly. Training officials come in. The KPIC board has set up a really nice space, which is really conducive to this kind of collaboration and to having these, talks and these these new ways of thinking. And the fellows also have opportunities to, talk to the Code for All Network via Google Hangout, and learn from them as to how they did things in Australia or in Canada or in different parts of the world. So yeah. So these ideas very much inform how the program is run. We're we're taking a leap from some best practices, in technology design around the world.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'll I'll just, you know, quickly add a comment, to this. We being the government interface, for this program, you know, we are on a it's a it's a routine for us on a on a routine basis. We, we receive different problem statements from these government departments, from, you know, small, small tiny glitches in their, you know, websites to a highly innovative idea. So, so what happens is that, you know, once we receive these problem statements, then we classify them. And depending on, our experience with the fellowship program, we, divert some of those problems to that fellowship program. And since we are, you know, we're regularly engaged with the rest of the government departments, we've been able to sort of change the mindset, the the traditional mindset that's there existed, within the government. There there, you know, there's there's always reluctance, to, you know, to towards change management, towards technology absorption. So so we've been able to we we we played that advocate's role for the fellowship program. We've we've been able to change that mindset. And, now the you know, there's there's plenty of innovation going on. And, actually, at the government level, people have started thinking out of the box, and they reach out to us for really innovative solutions. And that's how this program has changed the entire dynamics of, how, we've been governing in KP.
And if I may zoom out, you know, what maybe one step more. Of course, Asim and Shiva are involved in in running the program. So, you know, their experiences are very much grounded on on the realities of working with the government and and with the youth who participate in in the program. But, you know, to my mind, my favorite thing about this program is is really related to my favorite thing about technology in general. You know, whether it was like it or not, technology is changing the the world around us, and it's changing the way we engage. And my favorite thing about, sort of living in in this, period is is the idea of crowdsourcing. And I think what's really unique about this program is that it's crowdsourcing innovations, from the government side, to youth, to get the youth involved in actually offering solutions to the government. So in a way, if you think about it, it's it's sort of a, you know, democratic participation. You know, sometimes, we engage with governments through democratic processes, through petitions, you know, demanding better services, etcetera. But, you know, maybe citizens should not always be just demanding but actually contributing to the government's efforts to run these programs better, to deliver the services better. And what's really innovative here is is that the program, builds on the the creativity and and innovation, coming from the youth, towards delivering better services for all citizens. And in the process, of course, we're helping the youth gain some skills, helping the youth sort of transform their own lives. But at the end of the day, what they're really doing is helping their governments run better for everyone.
I love that. Plus one to both what Austin and, Amjad said. Yeah. It's it's such a big, picture from all angles all around, like, coming together in this thing. It's it's hard to pin it down the one thing that that the fellowship program is doing. So I'm really enjoying the, the energy and and enthusiasm I'm hearing from each of you about the program.
Each of you does represent an organization that's working in partnership with each other to make it happen. I would be curious to hear about what that relationship looks like and how it operates from each of your individual perspectives. Umjet, would you like to start us off and talk about that a little bit?
Sure. Happy to. So the World Bank, has a large engagement with the KP government and the KP information technology board, that has sort of several, phases. So we've been working with the government to help connect youth to opportunities in the digital economy. This is sort of our biggest objective. We've been doing this not only because youth unemployment is a big challenge in KP, but also, we want to give the youth an opportunity to transition into adulthood and feel like they're a part of the their own society and the global economy, even if they live in a province that that's traditionally been affected by conflict and war and and things like that. So we've followed a multi dimensional approach to build this program in KP. In the first phase, we helped the government to create Pakistan's first provincial digital strategy, which later on got adopted as government's policy, placing skills training, business incubation, and, digital infrastructure at the center of development efforts in KP. In the second phase, we helped the government pilot some key initiatives, such as the Government Innovation Fellowship Program and a few others like the Youth Employment Program to sort of try to identify solutions that might work to get youth in KP, in one of the youngest provinces in Pakistan, to get the youth in into work and offering solutions. And, finally, in the in the third stage, we're now working with the government on, channeling development resources from coming from government, coming from nongovernmental agencies, from donors for strategic in, strategic investments, following the strategy that that was developed earlier on, in our dialogue. And, we are hoping to enable KP to become, Pakistan's tech hub in in the future. So this program sort of falls under this broad umbrella, that aims to bring the youth together with the technology sector, not just domestically, but, but internationally. And it is, it is one of my my favorite, initiatives under the program because, like I said, it connects youth with the government. It helps the youth, but it also helps the government, deliver better services.
And, awesome, what would, what's your perspective on the relationship with the program?
Okay. So so, in the context of the fellowship program, the KBIT board is, really playing the central role, in this entire arrangement. So, what we've done is, like, we've we we are the government interface. We are the advocates for the program. So it's like, you know, if the program flies, it has to be acceptable to the client as well, which is, in this case, the government. So what we're doing is that, on a regular basis, we're running these awareness sessions where we're running these, seminars for different government officials, and, we're informing them about the importance of technology and about the importance of civic tech, and how that can help transform governments. So, in addition to that, we're we're providing the office space. Like Shiva said, it's a it's a very conducive environment. All these fellows, they are placed, within that incubation facility, to work on the their problem statements. We are also, providing them with monthly stipends to cover for their expenses. And then, obviously, coordinating with the government departments for, you know, effective deployment of, the different solutions that are being developed under the fellowship program. So far, we've, we've developed around, I guess, twenty, twenty five different software applications. And it's, for, you know, a number of different government departments. They they've been successfully deployed. The some of them have had extremely positive results. They've, contributed to, you know, towards the transparency, towards better governance, towards, you know, ensuring, more revenue generation for the government. So, I would be it it it would be fair to say that, KPIT board is the gel that holds this fellowship program together.
And, Sheba, what about your perspective?
Yeah. Absolutely. Everything echo everything that, has been said before by Amjad and Asim Saab. It's a really multidimensional program, and each partner organization plays a really critical role in, in a different dimension of it. So, the KTIT board, as I mentioned, like, that is the organization that actually, has all the liaising with the government departments and providing the funding for the program, including the stipend for the fellows, the workspace, what and, the World Bank's role in thought leadership and in, government liaising and and assessing the priority areas. Code for Pakistan's role is, sort of the technical expertise. Like, we've designed the fellowship program based on, the Code for America model and models from around the world. So the curriculum is designed and implemented by Code for Pakistan, draws from the Code for All network. We have three or four dedicated employees that we employ and, and fund ourselves. One is our head of fellowships, Anam Zakaria. Another is, the fellowship program manager, Ittihaj Khan, and then, the fellowship associate program manager, Suhail. And, currently, we also have Nazim, who is also helping out. And so we have the folks who run the program interfacing with the fellows and teaching the fellows, taking them through the curriculum, actually working on the technical, design and and, of the project and liaising with all the different government departments. But really, like, it's yeah. And bringing in sort of global best practices in civic tech, from the Code for All network. But the program is only possible because of this kind of three way collaboration where each partner brings in the specific angle and expertise and, access, and kind of interest in engagement in driving civic innovation.
You know, this work seems like it would involve some pretty highly sought after skills or or personality traits or, you know, things in between there. So that that begs the question, what what makes for a successful fellow going through this program?
So I think besides the technical skills, you guys can jump in whenever you want to, but, like, you know, let's just I'll just say that, you know, since I'm I'm on ground and I've I've, interacted with, the different fellows that have at least two cycles, that have that that have been incubated in this program. I think besides the technical skills, it is very important that, you know, you actually have this belief in civic tech and how it has the power to transform governance. Because, you know, if, if you don't have that, then the the the fellowship program just falls apart. There are half cooked solutions, and it, there's there's, lack of interest, and it doesn't go away. It doesn't really get where we want it to be. So we've witnessed that those individuals that had a tinge of that extra energy and that, you know, to go that extra mile, they've delivered the best. So, you know, that's what it takes. These are the skills that I think are required. But, Shiva and Anshith, if you want to add something to it.
Yeah. I think that's great. I think that's absolutely right. I think to be successful, these fellows not only need to have, you know, some technical skills, but also they need to be receptive to learning the new methodologies and the ideas being taught, being really engaged in civic tech like Asim Saab said, having a growth mindset. It's very easy to, you know, when you are trying to work with different government departments that have varying levels of, availability or engagement, you've gotta have the growth mindset and say and, you know, see that we are in this for the long haul. Like, government is not going to change overnight. There's lots of processes and legacy, systems and things like that. So really kind of being positive about, and celebrating every little win that you get along the way because it's it's all accumulating towards, this bigger end goal ultimately of of, government working well for all citizens. So, yeah, I would echo that.
I think, Ryan, I'm I'm glad you asked this question because it's giving us an opportunity to highlight one of the invisible, sort of, traits of this program. I think one of the most important skills that the youth are gaining through the program, whether they have it before they join or not, they this is something that they learn on the job, are the soft skills involved in sort of trying to convince a bureaucracy to to accept innovation, trying to, work in in in a sort of sometimes low capacity government departments? And this is not in any way, specific to Pakistan or or KP. You know, in general, governments are still adapting to to sort of embrace technology in in the type of work that they do, but it's it's not, that they were not originally designed that way. Right? So it takes a lot of effort to to engage with, various departments, work with bureaucrats, work within the bureaucracy to push, innovation that's ultimately going to, deliver results that are better for everyone, all citizens, including those bureaucrats who sometimes, push back. So I think, this is sort of like an invisible, maybe we haven't done, such a great job sort of highlighting this aspect of the program, but the grid, the soft skills, working with bureaucracy, trying to build dialogue, sometimes using diplomacy, I think, I think these are very important traits. I mean, the technical, skills that fellows have to have entering the program and the experience they gain, those are sort of one thing. But I think these soft skills, are also very, very important for the ultimate success, and uptake of the solution that the fellows come up with.
On the other side of this, are there things with projects that also serve as, like, traits for what makes a successful project? Are there are there patterns for that as well? Awesome. I I think perhaps you might be the the best one to maybe start us off with that.
Well, I think it it depends a lot on the client department. See, it's it's it's not the technology that fails, but, you know, actually the people that fail. So so what I've seen over the years is that, you know, the the the the the government departments that are actually enthusiastic about digital transformation, they have actually had a lot of success even with the tiniest projects. Even with the tiniest, small, technology driven project, they've had major successes. So I think, it's it's, it's that actually. It has to be the client department that, determines whether project is going to succeed or fail.
I think champions I mean, maybe Shiva has more to add on this. But from my perspective, you know, what Asim said, having champions in the government, definitely, I think that's a make or break type of a factor. But I think in addition to that, the solution needs to, respond to a need. Maybe maybe a need that sort of, not being met, because of volume. So, you know, services that require affect a lot of lot of people in the province that are not being delivered in the in the most efficient way or, sort of services that are trying to reach groups that are not easy to reach through universal service provision by the government. So for example, one of my, favorite, projects that the fellows have worked on deals with, you know, human rights issues or it deals with delivering certain types of services to minority groups. So these are traditionally difficult to reach groups or difficult to, address, you know, issues that are difficult to bring up, with governments. So using using technology and using an innovative mindset to sort of, make the government reach those groups or address those issues, I think would have to be one one of the most important trades.
If there are listeners out there that are keen on getting involved with the fellowship, whether it's to apply to be a fellow themselves or if there are other ways to get involved, how would one go about signaling their interest?
Anybody who's interested can follow our social media channels. The Coach of Python certainly has one. The KPIAT board has one. World Bank has one, where we advertise each new fellowship cycle. You can also join Coach of Python has a newsletter mailing list in which we, put out a call for applications when it's time every year, and we and that's generally put out, the call is usually put out somewhere between January and March each year. The fellowship cycle usually begins in June or July every year, and we start the hiring process by, March, April. You can email, any of us as well. For Coach for Pakistan, you can email at info@coachforpakistan.org. There are also civic innovation labs that Coach for Pakistan has, in various cities, in certainly in Peshawar, in Islamabad, also in Karachi. And, and those are community groups that, of volunteer citizens who may not, for instance, you know, be ready to become full time fellows right away. But, for instance, the Peshawar Civic Innovation Lab, anybody in, the KP Province can, participate in that as a volunteer and first see what that's like. They work on actual projects. Some of the projects that came out of fellowship program, they will help support that, and work liaise with the government, and see what that is like, you know, and, and then apply to the fellowship program as well.
And, we're gonna go ahead and slide into our, traditional, like, concluding thought section of this podcast episode. I do have a a slightly different ask, of each of you as you think about what those thoughts are gonna be. I'd like you, if you're willing, to include in your, monologue, something about a lesson learned that you've encountered along your way and in your involvement with this program.
So I guess as as we close, a few additional thoughts come to mind. So first, I think what the fellows have demonstrated in KP is that governments can partner with talented technologists even if they're, you know, young young kids, who have lots of ideas and energy, to make the institutions more user centric and more transparent and at the same time help deliver services better to citizens. To my mind, this shows that youth is not, always a burden for governments. Sometimes that's, how governments see the youth. You know, we we need to create enough jobs for them. We need to, you know, it's it's not always a burden. They can serve as an asset, a partner. They can also serve as sources of creativity and innovation for governments to serve their citizens better. So I think that's, that's something that I would like to leave the listeners with. And also putting my hat on as a program manager, I think another big lesson, that that we need to keep in mind is that one needs to strike a good balance between innovation and sustainability. So we live at a time when the rate of innovation and sort of turnover is head spinning. So we can always innovate and find new solutions. And there's a tendency sometimes to sort of use technology very quickly. And then, you know, there's something newer and better, and we move on. I think in a program like this where, citizens, youth, the government are all coming together to engage, it's really important to keep that sustainability element alive. Yes. We want to innovate and find new solutions, but we also want to sustain, you know, maintain, streamline, the the solutions that have already been, developed. So I think moving forward, that's probably where our efforts are also going to be focusing on.
I'll share a quick little story first before getting into, a couple of lessons. In 2013, in Mexico, the Mexico House of Representatives signed a contract with, a large software development firm to build an app that legislators would use to track bills. So the app would just be for the handful of legislators in the house, and the contract was a two year contract for $9,300,000. So a lot of people were really angry about this, especially technology geeks who know that $9,300,000 is an absolutely outrageous amount of taxpayer money for what was a very simple act. Right? But instead of taking to the streets and protesting, which is what citizenship has often become up until the advent of technology, I would say, in in many ways, instead of doing that, these techy citizens, they issued a challenge. They asked programmers in Mexico to build something better and cheaper, and they offered a price of $9,300, a thousand times cheaper than the government contract. And they gave the entrance ten days. And in those ten days, a 173 people, registered to submit apps, five of which were presented at congress and are still in the App Store today. And because of that action, the contract was vacated. And this gave rise to, a whole civic engagement, movement of techies, technologists in Mexico City led by, Code for Mexico City, which happens to be one of our, partners in the Code for All network. But I think what you see is that ordinary citizens saw things that could be working better and they decided to fix them, and technology helped them do that. And not only did they address the immediate issue that they set out to fix, but they're creating a whole new, twenty first century ecosystem of participation. Like, creating a whole new set of ways for people to be involved besides voting or protesting or signing a petition. Like, thanks to technology in many ways now, people can do a lot more. They can actually use their skills to build government. So one of the one of the things that lessons that, you know, I really take to heart from all of this is is that it's more than a job. It's our duty. Like, public institutions can barely work without the public support and so engaging the public meaningfully, to help create solutions, is gonna be huge for government and it is, it is huge for for citizens to also step up and be civically engaged and be a part of creating the solution. It is it can be, you know, hard to keep sight of the end goal because that will take twenty years or thirty years before we completely change the culture, of the way, you know, innovation happens in, in government. But I think it's important to remember that that you can't create impact overnight. We've already seen some fantastic things, projects come out of the KP fellowship program like the project that, Emcha referenced, to do with religious minorities or other projects to do with traffic. But really slow and steady wins the race. Just sort of making sure that we share our successes as well as our trials and tribulations, asking for support from the civic tech movement, which is global, which is around the world. So we are never alone. It might seem like in our little world, we're alone. But, innovation is happening in governments around the world, and it's really inspiring to see, and it's really inspiring to to share stories and talk with each other. And, you know, in in even in developing countries where government is stretched for resources and citizens can be mistrusting of public sector officials, Like, it is possible to redesign that relationship and for the government and citizens to work together as you're seeing happening in in Peshawar and in the KP province.
Just briefly quote a story as well. When I joined the IT board a couple of years back, we were, you know, we were we were taking in the third cycle of the fellowship program. We would literally run after different government departments and trying to convince them that, you know, if you've got any, problems, with regards to service delivery and if you would want to explore how, with the help of technology intervention, we can, have a, you know, a suitable solution. Would you be interested in participating in a in a program? And there was, you know, plenty of reluctance. And, and today, when we took our fifth cycle a couple of months back, I received calls from departments whose applications were not considered for the fellowship program. Even I had even people walking into my office and complaining that, you know, their, their problems were more significant as compared to other problems and how we should have considered it for the fellowship program. So an important lesson was that, over the last couple of years, over the last five cycles, the way, how this program was run persistently, hats off to the fellow the to the court for Pakistan team. Hats off to Shiba. Hats off to Lanham. Hats off to the World Bank team, Anjat, and all my other colleagues to, you know, how they've been watching over this program, how they've been enthusiastic about this program, and how they've been all how they've always been there to, you know, play their role in this program that has really made this program a success. So my lesson learned was that if you remain, persistent, if you remain consistent in your, efforts, you really get the desired results. We developed a number of, applications, under the fellowship program. Like Amjad said, everyone has a favorite. My one my my my favorite is the, is the is the one that we developed for the, traffic police. It has, with a very insignificant cost, it has created a very huge impact. It has changed the way, you know, traffic is controlled in KP, the way, you know, traffic is managed in KP. So, you know, that's how it changed, the entire, traffic management system. I would conclude by saying that, it's good to bring innovation in our lives to make them easier, but we really need to work on bringing innovation the way we think and the way others around us think. So, you know, the way, all these government departments, the way this this, entire program has changed the way they think has been an absolute joy for us.
Thank you, each of you, for coming on the program and and sharing your stories, your lessons learned, and your expertise. Again, thank you so much for coming on Civic Tech Chat.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us.
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