Five exciting GovTech companies to keep an eye on in 2023
GovTech - Government Technology. Malicious tongues claim that in Germany this is the fax machine. But the fact is that e-applications for student grants are printed out again at the office. In Estonia, on the other hand - thanks to the e-Estonia program - only three things require a personal appearance: marriage, divorce and real estate purchase. However, nothing digitizes itself. Many companies are working with governments and administrations to replace the Leitz folder with ones and zeros and the trip to the office with an Internet connection. We have listed five interesting GovTech companies here:
1. PUBLIC
The company started in 2016 as an investor and accelerator. It has since become a major player in the GovTech industry. "Innovative companies are central to the future viability and digital renewal of the public sector" - this maxim, among others, has led to the founding of the GovTech Campus. PUBLIC aims not only to create framework conditions, but also to promote and develop digital solutions with a policy-to-product approach. And not only in Germany: The Berlin-based company has a second office in the "Public Hall" in London.
2. Neural Space
Neural Space also provides the link between Berlin and London - and moreover to everyone else who speaks neither German nor English. The London-based AI company offers solutions that break down language barriers. The platform not only enables phonetic spelling on an English keyboard layout in other languages, but also offers real-time voice-to-text and most importantly: sentiment analysis. This also translates what is written between the lines. At the moment, Neural Space is limited to European languages, but the goal is that in the future no one will be lost in translation in Asia and the Middle East.
3. Citibeats
For communication between the state and its citizens to work, the state must also be able to listen well. With an ever-larger population, the implementation of representative surveys - even digitally - is becoming increasingly complicated. Can't AI help? Citibeats answers the question with an algorithm that scours social media and evaluates the population's online votes. In doing so, the Barcelona-based company is expanding social media listening to include features that focus on people, mitigate biases, and instead of relying on specific keywords, pays attention to micronarratives and learns on its own.
4. SupWiz
Meanwhile, our northern neighbors respond to "Hatsh!" with "sundhed.dk" and attach a top-level domain to the health wish. Especially at the beginning of the Corona crisis, many questions arose - also in Denmark - that needed to be answered. Too many to handle them all on the phone. This has been remedied by SupWiz's chatbot. The AI platform consists not only of chatbots, but also ticket routing, email sorting, knowledge article matching and much more. Founded in Copenhagen only in 2017, the company has already won two major domestic innovation awards in 2019 and 2022.
5. Sidekick
And those who do need to see a doctor after talking to the chatbot may not have to. At least that's what Sidekick promises - and more: the solution pays special attention to prevention. Using a gamification approach, the company wants to help people lead a healthy lifestyle and puts them in touch with life coaches and nutritionists from the USA, Iceland, Sweden and Germany, for example. If the worst comes to the worst, one of 14 digital therapies (with 18 more in the pipeline) is then used, along with medication delivery - personalized, of course.
Hendrik Pflaumbaum is a Communication Executive at PIABO and works with B2B tech companies from various sectors. Would you like to learn more about how PIABO can support your GovTech company in the area of communication and/or is your company missing in the overview? Then feel free to contact us via govtech@piabo.net.
