Tue, 19th Aug 2025, 12-1pm, G.01, Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 15 Stout Street Wellington 6011 - and online
We heard from María Inés Baque Government Transformation Advisor for Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean (LCC) at AWS. María joined us online from Argentina to share her expert insights and experiences on the key goals, capabilities, opportunities and challenges for government digital transformation - with a range of use cases from around Latin America.
María's has kindly shared her slides here. Below are a few take-outs:
It is crucial to put the citizen at the center - this is the most crucial thing for change management.
Government procurement is a key tool - buying digital services is different to analogue products/services, and we need to have flexible marketplaces for procurement.
Digital services and infrastructure need to have the right incentives built in, so they make financial sense and endure in spite of political changes.
Important to have teams that are a mix of public servants, suppliers, and citizens (both the early adopters and the more reluctant adopters). You should also look to cross-pollinate with experts from other fields, e.g. scientists and engineers. For an inspiring public-good project you can count on the right experts to apply to help (many people are interested in working for the government at one stage in their career), but you need to deliver it within 3-4 years or you risk having them becoming disillusioned and moving on.
Your key enablers for digital transformation are 1) universal digital identity, 2) interoperability between different levels of govt (e.g. federal, state, local), 3) use of technical standards (e.g. Tallinn Manual, SNOMED, HIPAA, HL7) and 4) good practices for use of technology.
Many countries in Latin America (LATAM) now want digital sovereignty and data residency (but this means different things in different places).
LATAM governments are taking cyber security seriously, despite their relatively benign geopolitics. Setting up Security Operations Centres.
To use AI, first you need to have services and data in the cloud. Then you need to understand "what for" with your AI tools... there are many proofs of concept (including efforts at national LLMs), but not much strategy.
Multiple case studies from Brazil - has made use of state-owned data companies (e.g. Dataprev and Serpro), and a widely adopted contactless payment standard established by their central bank, called Pix. Has centralised data and digital services for over 360 million legal proceedings and over 15 billion legal documents - which may now be used as training data for AI models. Offers a seamless digital experience to beneficiaries. Has used a range of computer vision and generative AI tools to improve healthcare services.
Case study from Argentina - all citizens have a govt-issued DNI identity number and card, which is regularly renewed with biometric data.
Case study from Mexico - new president has set a goal for the country to move from 65th to 30th in the UN Digital Government Index and intends to develop a single Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) platform for the country.
María's general advice to New Zealand? Think big but start small with what you have. And never waste a good crisis!
María Inés Baque is Government Transformation Advisor for Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean (LCC) at AWS. She served as secretary of digital government and technology innovation in Argentina from 2016 to 2019. She coordinated the Digital Agenda 2030 and led the transformational efforts in the areas of digital services, digital inclusion, open government, open data and new technologies adoption.
Global awards and recognitions she has received include Innovation Lab, Tel Aviv, 20 exceptional GovTech Leaders (2020), Women Corporate Directors 2019 and The 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government, Apolitical, 2018.
She was co-chair of the G20 Digital Economy Taskforce for Gender Inclusion in 2018 that issued the Bridging the Digital Gender Divide report.
Before government, her career was in global IT and financial services enterprises. She focused on process reengineering, startups, IT management, outsourcing and business process operations.
This event was held in partnership with Silverstripe.