two man and one woman talking outside at the festival area
two man and one woman talking outside at the festival area

Creative Bureaucracy Festival: The Best Examples of Administrative Innovation

From Germany and Around the World 
 

  • On 13 June, over 1,300 people from government, politics, and society will gather in Berlin for the 7th Creative Bureaucracy Festival, where they will celebrate successful innovations in the public sector 
  • Four stage programmes and four interactive workshop tracks define the festival day 
  • In a total of 83 sessions, more than 200 speakers from close to 40 nations will present groundbreaking projects, engage in discussions with participants, and connect with innovative bureaucrats from around the world 
  • The teams that won the community vote at the Digital Kick-Off Day will showcase their projects 
  • The entire festival programme can be found here: https://creativebureaucracy.org/programme/ 
  • The Impact Stage programme will be broadcast live and free of charge: https://cbf-livestream-2024.eventbrite.de/     
  • Tickets are available for 29 euros here https://creativebureaucracy.org/tickets/ 


Berlin, 8 March 2024. On 13 June, the 7th Creative Bureaucracy Festival will gather top creative minds from the public sector to share best practices, insights, and methods for fostering innovation in government, and to celebrate talent from across the globe. More than 200 speakers from almost 40 countries will present the most innovative projects for modern administrations, spread across four stages and four interactive forums in a total of 83 sessions in English and German. 

The festival will open at 9 a.m. on the Impact Stage. Keynotes and panels will showcase groundbreaking initiatives and best practices for turning impactful ideas into actionable steps. The emphasis is on current trends and approaches that have the potential to drive lasting social change. Selected speakers and institutions are: Marco Buschmann, Federal Minister of Justice; Hubertus Heil, Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs; Markus Richter, Chief Information Officer of the Federal Government and State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs; the Federal Ministry of Defence; Martina Klement, State Secretary for Digitalisation and Administrative Modernisation and Chief Digital Officer of the State of Berlin; Misbah Khan, Member of the German Bundestag and many more. The international guests include personalities such as: Namatai Kwekweza (Zimbabwe), first winner of the Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize and democracy activist; Sophie Howe (UK), former Future Generations Commissioner for Wales; Tamara Srzentić (Montenegro), former Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media; and many other present and former government officials from across the world. 

"Thanks to the commitment and excellent teamwork of over 100 partner institutions worldwide, our joint festival will once again become a platform for all participants to co-create and exchange ideas about the projects that really move our administration forward. It will be possible to experience how excellent innovations can emerge, succeed, and become a model for initiatives in the public sector across all boundaries of administrative and hierarchical levels, tasks, and countries," says festival director Johanna Sieben. For the fifth year in a row, PD - Berater der öffentlichen Hand GmbH is the main festival partner. Stéphane Beemelmans, Managing Director of PD, says regarding the festival: "The multi-faceted festival programme offers our public clients and shareholders from all federal levels an inspiring framework for sharing best practice examples and inspiring them to follow their example. In addition to impulses for the sustainable transformation of administration and digital methods in construction projects, our sessions will focus on the responsible use of artificial intelligence. I am excited about the ideas that will emerge during the festival and look forward to interesting discussions and conversations."

On the open-air stage, known as the Connection Stage, the focus is on fostering communities and establishing strong partnerships. Key topics include citizen-centric grant management, sustainable procurement, mission-driven bureaucrats, examples of effective state modernisation around the world, and the fundamentals of project management in the public sector. Institutions on the Connection Stage include: the Project Management Institute (PMI); the DigitalService of the Federal Government; the Bertelsmann Foundation; byte - Bavarian Agency for Digitalisation; Vibelab; the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, and the winning entries of the Digital Kick-Off Day Community Voting of the German-language programme.

The Imagination Stage centers on reimagining the bureaucracy of the future with vision and creativity. Expect thought-provoking discussions on topics from foresight in policymaking and reimagining finance for social good to shifting power through decolonization approaches and achieving zero bureaucracy. Institutions on the Imagination Stage will include: Lokalprojekte; the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs; the Centre for Public Impact; the Caravanserai Collective; Demos Helsinki; the School for International Futures; the winning entries (Brazil, Cameroon, African Union) of the Digital Kick-Off Day Community Voting of the English-language programme and many more.

The Transformation Stage focuses on transformative initiatives and aims to drive forward measures to tackle urgent problems. Projects on the stage include the following: DARP (German Recovery and Resilience Plan); Love Politics (Austria); GovTech Connect (EU); the Diversity in Office initiative of the Deutschlandstiftung Integration(Germany); Ayni (Latin America and Africa) and many more. 
 

Four forums will complement the stage programme, allowing participants to engage with Creative Bureaucracy topics in smaller groups using participatory formats: 
 

  • Forum AI: Organised by festival partner PD – Berater der öffentlichen Hand, this forum explores various aspects of artificial intelligence in the public sector. 
  • Forum Resilient Futures: This forum, hosted by partners including the German Federal Ministry of Defence, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Project Management Institute, and Placemaking Europe, explores strategies for building resilience in the public sector. 
  • Forum Bureaucratic Activism: Organised by Politics for Tomorrow, the Danish Center for Public-Private Innovation, Dark Matter Labs, and the Center for Complexity RISD, this forum examines how various levels of influence within democratic systems can be used to advocate for societal decisions that meet the needs of our communities. 
  • Forum Cities: Prototyping Democracy: Organised with the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt RISE Cities, this forum discusses, in various sessions, how cities can serve as testing grounds for democratic innovation and social progress.

Among the festival's project partners are the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Centre for Public Impact, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the Federal Ministry of Finance, the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, the Project Management Institute (PMI), the Federal Office of Administration, the Federal Foreign Office, GPM - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Projektmanagement e.V. and the Federal Ministry of Defence. Tickets are available on the festival website at https://creativebureaucracy.org/tickets/.

Press Contact:
press@creativebureaucracy.org

ABOUT THE CREATIVE BUREAUCRACY FESTIVAL
The Creative Bureaucracy Festival shines a spotlight on creative solutions to a wide variety of community issues within administration, bringing them center-stage and fostering a dialogue among the individuals and minds behind them. According to its president Charles Landry, the festival stands for a change from a "No, because" culture to a "Yes, if" culture that inspires people to try new things. The festival also aims to strengthen the reputation of the administration and appeal to imaginative young talents. creativebureaucracy.org 

ABOUT THE FALLING WALLS FOUNDATION
Since 2009, the non-profit Falling Walls Foundation has been bringing together the most renowned and influential thought leaders from around the world. Nobel Prize winners, start-ups, young scientific talents, research companies, culture, politics and the media discuss the question: "Which are the next walls to fall in science and society?". The Falling Walls Foundation's programmes build bridges be-tween science and society and convey enthusiasm for the work of scientists in all disciplines.​​​​​​​falling-walls.com

ABOUT PD – ADVISOR TO THE PUBLIC SECTOR
As a partner to the public sector, PD combines economic and strategic expertise with in-depth knowledge of the special processes and structures of public sector clients. On this basis, PD offers consulting and management services on all aspects of modern administration with a team of around 1,100 employees. Clients are exclusively federal, state and local authorities as well as other public bodies and institutions, as PD is itself 100 per cent publicly owned as an in-house consultancy​​​​​​​. pd-g.de

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