09:15-10:05

Panel Session: Beyond Legacy: Building Governments That Work
Main Stage

Modernising legacy systems is no longer optional, yet disruption carries real risks for essential services. This session explores practical approaches to legacy transformation, digital architecture redesign, and institutional change, focusing on how governments can build agile, interoperable systems while maintaining continuity.

Moderator: Miguel Porrúa, Digital Government Principal Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank
• Ana Rita Pereira, Director, Government Affairs, Microsoft
• Giulio Quaggiotto, Advisor, Prime Minister’s Office, United Arab Emirates
• Leanne Cummings, Director, Government Digital Service (GDS), United Kingdom
• Ignacio Gei, Secretary of Smart City and Digital Transformation, Municipality of Córdoba, Argentina
• Isabelle Hupont, Head of the National Office of Scientific Advice (ONAC), Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, Government of Spain
• Sarah Gold, Founder and CEO, Projects by IF

10:05 – 10:55

Panel Session: Digital Identity and Public Infrastructure
Main Stage

Digital public infrastructure is increasingly recognised as the foundation of inclusive digital economies. This session examines how digital identity, secure data exchange, and interoperable platforms enable service innovation, financial inclusion, and economic resilience, drawing lessons from countries building DPI as a long-term public asset.

Moderator: Catherine Nikolovski

• Pramod Varma, Co-Founder & Chief Architect, Networks For Humanity; Co-Creator, FINTERNET & BECKN; Co-Chair of CDPI India
• Alex Wong, Senior Advisor, Strategic Engagement and Initiatives; Office of the Secretary-General; International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
• Jana Krimpe, Founder and CEO of B.EST Solutions; TOP100 Influencers in Digital Identity worldwide
• Alexander Iosad, Director of the Government Innovation Policy team, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
• Désirée Heutschi, Co-CEO of Procivis and Head of Corporate Development at Orell Füssli

10:55 – 11:10

Industry Session: Manage Engine
Main Stage

11:10 – 11:25

GovTech4All Awards in partnership with GovTech for Impact
Main Stage

The GovTech4All Awards showcase digital transformation projects developed through collaboration between startups, digital SMEs, and European public administrations.

In collaboration with GovTech for Impact 2026, the awards highlight scalable GovTech initiatives that strengthen Europe’s institutions and improve public services. Winners will be selected with the support of the G4I Expert Committee.

11:25 – 12:10

Coffee Break & Networking
Exhibition & Networking Area

12:10 – 12:40

The GovTech Compass: From Digital Ambition to Public Value

Main Stage

Digital transformation can unlock better services and stronger state capability. Yet without clear guardrails, it can also deepen exclusion, weaken accountability, and entrench systems that are difficult to adapt once deployed, ultimately eroding government legitimacy and public trust. Many of the most persistent challenges in GovTech and digital public infrastructure (DPI) stem less from technology itself than from how decisions are made across design, procurement, implementation, and oversight.

Over the past year, members of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on GovTech and Digital Public Infrastructure have developed a principles-based framework to help policymakers, digital leaders, and ecosystem stakeholders navigate these choices more deliberately.

This session will mark the official launch of the GovTech Compass, a new publication setting out ten practical principles to keep citizens at the centre of GovTech and DPI design and deployment, strengthening public value, inclusion, accountability, and trust. The discussion will introduce the Compass and explore real-world examples of how governments are already applying these principles in practice, highlighting what responsible digital transformation looks like on the ground.

Moderator: Kelly Ommundsen, Head, Digital Inclusion, Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum

12:40 – 12:55

Industry Session: Quipux

Main Stage

Governments don’t struggle with visión, they struggle with execution. This session presents a proven, real-world model to move from strategy to large-scale implementation in as little as 60 days. Through multi-step process frameworks and Public-Private Partnerships, discover how governments can scale digital transformation, accelerate service delivery, and generate measurable public impact across mobility and public services.

Key Topics

· Multi-step process model for government services

· Public-Private Partnerships as execution accelerators

· Smart mobility and transport-related services

· Scaling from pilots to system-wide impact

· Delivering results in as little as 60 days

• Juan Pablo Ramírez, Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Quipux

12:30 – 13:15

From Strategy to Implementation: Best Practices in Digital Government

Second Stage

How can cities move from strategy to delivery in digital government? This session brings together practical experiences from Madrid City Council, showcasing how digital tools, artificial intelligence, and data-driven approaches are being applied to improve public services, urban management, and quality of life. Through examples ranging from licensing and citizen participation to mobility and urban intelligence, the session explores what implementation looks like in practice.

Moderator: Marta Cruz Rojo, Head of Service, Madrid Capital Digital

• Marta Parro Pérez, Head of Coordination and Innovation Service for Licences, General Directorate of Building
• María Pía Junquera, Director General of Transparency, Madrid City Council
• José Manuel Ropero, Deputy Director General for Older People and Unwanted Loneliness, Madrid City Council
• Miguel Ángel Alemany Haro, Deputy Director for Active Employment Policies, Employment Agency, Madrid City Council
• Jesús Cerezo, Head of Process Integration Service, Deputy Directorate General for Urban Innovation and Information
• Javier Morales Puerta, Technical Adviser, Sueña Project
• José Javier Rodríguez, Deputy Director for Traffic Regulation and Taxi Services, Madrid City Council
• Carlos Acha Ledesma, Director of Technology and Innovation

12:55 – 13:20

Keynote Speaker: Innovating Under Pressure, From Digital State to Agentic State; From Civil Innovation to Defense: Ukraine’s New Innovation Architecture
Main Stage

• Valeriya Ionan, Independent Strategic Advisor to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.

13:20 – 13:55

Panel Session: AI in Public Services: Pilots, Scale, and Digital Sovereignty
Main Stage

Moving from pilots to institutional scale remains one of the biggest challenges in public-sector AI. This session focuses on what it takes to operationalise AI responsibly across institutions, including procurement reform, data governance, workforce capability, and the growing importance of sovereign AI infrastructure.

Moderator: Marina Mazoni EU Policy Officer at the European Commission

• Tiago Carneiro, Senior Digital Development Specialist, World Bank (Serbia)
• Jaume Miralles, Director General of Digital Innovation, Government of Catalonia
• Laman Ibrahimova, ASAN AI Hub and Advisor to the Director of the Innovations Center, Government of Azerbaijan
• Kelly Ommundsen, Head of Digital Public Goods, World Economic Forum
• Antonio García de la Paz, Deputy Director General for Data and AI, Madrid Capital Digital

13:25 – 13:55

Panel Session: Collective and Cognitive Urban Intelligence: City Brains in Action

Second Stage

Moderator: Cristina San Juan Head of Digital Services at Arup Spain

• Corné Helemons, Director of IoT, Forum Virium Helsinki
• Will Cavendish, Global Digital Services Lead at Arup; former member of the UK Government Cabinet under David Cameron
• Gonzalo Temes, Tech Solutions Director, MasOrange
• Marta Cruz, Head of Digital Intelligence Service, Madrid City Council

13:55 – 14:55

Lunch Break & Networking
Exhibition & Networking Area

14:55 – 15:15

Keynote Speaker: From AI Policy to Public Value: Building an Agentic, Trusted, and Human-Centric Digital State
Main Stage

This keynote will explore how governments can move beyond AI strategies, pilots, and compliance frameworks toward delivering measurable public value, including reduced administrative burden, time savings, improved service quality, increased revenue, and strengthened trust.

Framed through the concept of the “agentic state”, it will examine how data, AI, and institutions can operate proactively, transparently, and at scale, while keeping humans firmly in the loop. The session will focus on concrete use cases and practical approaches to implementation.

• Ott Velsberg, Government Chief Data Officer of Estonia

14:55 – 16:25

Side Event: GovTech4All: Municipality challenge-driven pilots for open innovation, experimentation, and scalability 
Second Stage

This session highlights how local government pilots enable experimentation for developing scalable innovations, testing new procurement approaches, building public-private partnerships, and trialing emerging technologies. Municipal teams from Lithuania, Greece, Sweden, and Spain share their experiences in starting new challenge-led pilots under GovTech4All project and discuss what makes solutions truly user-centric and valuable, and what helps or hinders their reuse and scaling beyond one institution.  

• Irmantas Znatinas, Project Manager at Vilnius City Municipality in Lithuania
• Dr. Konstantinos A. Avdelidis, Electrical and Computer Engineer, Dipl, PhD / Smart City Advisor to the Municipality of Trikala in Greece
• Elin Rapp, Strategy and Development Specialist / the City Planning Office at Sundsvall Municipality in Sweden
• Markus Flyborg, IT Architect / Strategy and Governance, Digital Development and IT / the Municipal Executive Office at Sundsvall Municipality in Sweden
• Eduard Falcó Artieda, EU Funds Consultant at CTTI (Centre of Telecommunications and Information Technologies) / Government of Catalonia in Spain
• Marta Cruz Rojo, Head of Digital Intelligence Service at Madrid City Council in Spain

15:15 – 15:45

Industry Session: From Trusted Data to Public Impact: Empowering AI and Service Delivery through Smart PFM Platforms

Main Stage

As governments accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence, the quality and integration of public data becomes a critical enabler of meaningful impact. This session, led by FreeBalance, explores how trusted financial data and integrated systems can support more effective, transparent and accountable public service delivery.

Drawing on global experience, the discussion will focus on how governments can move towards a “Government as a Platform” model, linking financial management, performance and outcomes to better serve citizens.

Key topics include the role of high-quality fiscal data in enabling responsible AI, the importance of integrated public financial management systems to break down silos, and practical strategies to navigate complex digital transformation processes while strengthening trust and accountability.

• Manuel Schiappa Pietra, President & CEO, FreeBalance; Executive Director, The Happier Way Foundation.

15:45 – 15:55

Mayor’s Forum Manifesto Presentation

Main Stage

15:55 – 16:25

Industry Session: How to implement AI workflows into public sector admin & legal work in a way that strengthens human judgment, speed, and quality

Main Stage

How can public institutions use AI to deliver faster on time-consuming processes, improve quality, and provide better outcomes for citizens?
This session introduces Legora, the European AI-powered technology workspace for legal and administrative work, valued at roughly €5 billion, and shows how secure AI can improve the speed, quality, and consistency of administrative and legal workflows in the public sector.

• Marcus Rajkowski, Head of Public Sector EMEA, Legora

16:25 – 17:00

Panel Session: Smart Cities

Second Stage

Moderator: Tamlyn Shimizu, Director of Global Partnerships and Events, BABLE Smart Cities

• Santiago Garcés, Chief Information Officer, City of Boston
• Mario De Mezzo, Mayor of Slatina, Romania
• Petr Šuška, Smart City Director, Prague City Hall
• Michael Donaldson, Chief Innovation Officer and General Director of BIT Habitat, Barcelona City Council
• Silvia Tomillo, Councillor for Smart Cities and Administrative Modernisation, Valladolid City Council

16:30 – 17:20

Plenary Session: Lessons for the World: From Innovation to Public Impact
Main Stage

This global exchange brings together leaders from different regions to share practical lessons from their digital transformation journeys. The discussion focuses on what works in practice, what scales across contexts, and how governments can adapt successful models to their own institutional realities.

Moderator: Daniel Abadie, Center for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI)

• Rodrigo Iriani, Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence
• Juan Esteban Uribe Vázquez, Director of Public Innovation and Open Govrenment at the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá
• Etse Fiatsi, Information System Architect at Agence Togo Digital
• H.E. Rapid Sun, Under Secretary of State, Ministry of Post and Telecommunications of Cambodia
• Kateryna Frolova, Head of the Global Government Technology Centre (GGTC) Kyiv

17:00 – 17:30

Data-driven public infrastructure: The Digital Twin of Digital Twins

Second Stage

Moderator: Rocío López Espinosa,Project Coordinator. ETSI Caminos, Canales y Puertos. Digital Twins for Complex Infrastructures and Urban Ecosystem

• Jordi Ortuño, Innovation projects coordinator in Barcelona city council
• Pärtel-Peeter Pere, ex-Deputy Mayor of Tallin
• Roberto Fernández-Hergueta, Digital Innovation & Public Sector Specialist, Madrid
• Laura Preciado, Digital Transformation & Innovation Specialist, Madrid

17:30 – 18:00

Digital Citizenship: Human Adaptive e-Services

Second Stage

Moderator: Silvia Saavedra, Director General for Senior Citizens, Madrid City Council

• Víctor Manuel Muñoz, Engineer, Entrepreneur, Former Director General of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of Colombia
• Lucia Belloccio, Founder & Director of Trend Smart Cities
• Elena Liria, Director, Digital Agency of the Community of Madrid
• Catherine Nikolovski, Executive Director, Civic Software Foundation

17:35 – 18:10

Plenary Session: Collaboration Models Between Startups and Governments
Main Stage

Effective GovTech ecosystems depend on sustainable partnerships between governments and innovators. This session explores how procurement innovation, regulatory experimentation, and shared risk models can enable startups to scale solutions while helping governments adopt innovation more effectively.

Moderator: Natalia Laguyas, Lead Specialist, Ecosystem Building and Acceleration Division at IDB Lab

• Idoia Ortiz de Artinano, Co-Founder and Partner, Gobe Studio
• Luciano Crisafulli, Director of the Coalition of Cities for Artificial Intelligence (CIIAR) in Latin America
• Nathan Ducastel, Director of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG)
• Fernando Álvarez García, Deputy Director General for Digital Transformation, Madrid City Council

18:00 – 18:30

Collaboration is key. Together, stronger (UCCI)

Second Stage

Moderator: Almudena Maillo, General Secretary of UCCI

• Fernando de Pablo, Digital Office Director, City of Madrid
• Pablo Saccani, Executive Director, Information Systems Agency (ASI), Buenos Aires 
• Josué Obando, Director of Technology and Innovation, Panama City

18:10 – 18:30

Fireside Chat

Main Stage

• Miguel López-Valverde, Regional Minister of Digitalization, Community of Madrid
• Dmitriy Mun, Vice-Minister of AI and Digital Development, Government of Kazakhstan

09:15- 9:45

Panel Session: Trust Reset: Winning Back Citizens
Main Stage

Public trust is increasingly shaped by how governments use technology. This session examines transparency, accountability, digital ethics, and citizen participation, focusing on how institutions can rebuild confidence while deploying AI and digital systems responsibly.

Moderator: Libby Maman, Founder and CEO, Luminata

• Micaela Sánchez, Founder, Generas NGO
• Tamara Srzentić, Former Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, Government of Montenegro
• Johannes Mikkonen, Senior Policy Expert, Demos Helsinki

9:45 – 10:45

Roundtables Session: Strategic Sovereignty and Scale: Governing in a Fragmented World
Main Stage

As digital systems become critical infrastructure, governments face a shared challenge: maintaining strategic autonomy while scaling effective public services in a fragmented technological and geopolitical landscape.

This session brings together perspectives from Europe, the United States, and the broader GovTech ecosystem to explore how governments can move from isolated pilots toward scalable public value.

Designed as a collaborative roundtable rather than a traditional panel, it encourages active participation, open exchange, and practical insights.

• Ibrahim Köran, Head of GovTech, Heliad
• Niles Friedman, Global GovTech and Social Impact Advisor, Washington, DC, United States
• Alex Borg, Project Manager and Research Associate, The Lisbon Council
• Sonia Crespo Nogales, Head of Department of Coordination and Monitoring of Digital Transformation, Government of Spain

10:45-11:25

Panel Session: People Power: Reducing Investment Risk and Scaling GovTech Solutions
Main Stage

Scaling GovTech requires capital, confidence, and institutional alignment. This session explores how blended finance, impact metrics, and public-private partnerships can reduce investment risk and create conditions for sustainable growth in GovTech markets.

Moderator: Sofía Silva, Project Manager, GovTech4All

• Igor Lys, Founder of Government Tomorrow Forum and Founder of Gambit Advisory
• Pedro Tavares, Co-Founder and CEO, GovHorizon; Former Secretary of State for Justice, Portugal
• Marina Mazoni, EU Policy Officer, European Commission

11:25-12:15

Coffee Break & Networking
Exhibition & Networking Area

12:15 – 12:45

Plenary Session: Tourism and Innovation: Sustainable Destinations
Main Stage

Tourism is increasingly shaped by digital governance and data-driven decision-making. This session explores how destinations can use digital tools, policy innovation, and ecosystem partnerships to strengthen sustainability, economic resilience, and local value creation.

Moderator: Fernando de Pablo, Digital Office Director, City of Madrid

• Natalia Bayona, Executive Director of UN Tourism, the United Nations World Tourism Organization
• Stef del Azar, Communications Manager at the Global Sustainable Tourism Council
• Sergio Guerreiro, Senior Director for Strategy & Knowledge Management at Turismo de Portugal

12:45 – 13:15

Plenary Session: Connected Government: Making Systems Talk
Main Stage

Interoperability underpins effective public service delivery. This session examines how standards, data exchange frameworks, and institutional coordination enable governments to provide seamless services across departments, jurisdictions, and sectors.

Moderator: Jonas Onland, Chief Vision Officer, Serendipity Tech
• Angie Kenny, Associate Partner, Public Digital
• Stefanos Kotoglou, Policy Officer, European Commission (DG DIGIT)
• Krystian Olchowik, Director of the GovTech Poland Department, Ministry of Digital Affairs, Poland
• Fabrizio Santoro, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies
• Louise Dann, Resource Mobilization and Partnerships Adviser, UNFPA

13:15 – 13:45

Conference Wrap-Up
Main Stage

The congress concludes by reflecting on key takeaways and future directions for governments advancing digital transformation. This session brings together leading voices from the G4I community to share final insights on what it takes to sustain momentum, strengthen collaboration, and turn innovation into lasting public impact.

• Fernando de Pablo, Digital Office Director, City of Madrid
• Carlos Santiso, Senior Advisor on Digital Government and Artificial Intelligence, OECD
• Miguel Porrúa, Digital Government Principal Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank
• Natalia Laguyas, Lead Specialist, IDB Lab, Inter-American Development Bank Group
• Jonas Onland, Chief Vision Officer, Serendipity Tech
• Tamara Srzentić, Former Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, Government of Montenegro
• Marina Mazoni, Policy Officer, European Commission
• Ana Rita Pereira, Public Sector Verticals Leader for Europe, Middle East & Africa, Microsoft