The largest Global Festival for Public Sector Innovation presents its 2021 programme
Creative Bureaucracy Festival 13-17 September:
The largest Global Festival for Public Sector Innovation presents its 2021 Programme with successful Role Models, inspiring Sessions, and high-profile Speakers from around the World
Berlin, 24 August, 2021. Innovation and creativity as the drivers of tomorrow's public administration: this is the focus of the Creative Bureaucracy Festival, which has just released its 2021 programme highlights. Which new approaches to thinking and acting can push open the doors for change? Which structural and cultural issues are currently stopping administrative modernisers?
On the English language stage, highlights include Taiwan's Digital Minister Audrey Tang, who discusses her country’s pandemic response approach, and Harvard University’s Professor Cass Sunstein, who outlines his learnings on how bureaucracies can rid themselves of too much noise from his experience advising multiple US administrations. On the German language stage, the German chancellor candidates Baerbock, Laschet and Scholz will outline their ideas for renewing the public administration and take audience questions ahead of the forthcoming 2021 federal election on 26 September. The daily Festival Highlight Hour with Charles Landry and Astrid Frohloff will take place between 1 to 2 p.m CET. See all sessions and speakers online at creativebureaucracy.org/festival-programme/
The Festival programme runs over five days and is targeted at creative bureaucrats and their allies the world over who are driven by the desire to create more modern and future-oriented public administrations. Numerous formats provide impulses for lively debates and collective brainstorming, with topics as: What have administrations across the globe learned from the Covid pandemic and other recent crises? What does modernisation mean and what do we need to do today to shape how administrations act?
From 13 to 17 September around 400 speakers will come together in 150 English- and German-language digital sessions to discuss the current challenges and potential futures for the public sector. Topics range from core questions about how the state operates and its strengths (e.g. notions of "humble government" and “imagination infrastructure”) to the administration's ability to act in extraordinary situations (e.g., crisis resilience) to how current policy work is implemented (e.g., procurement or cybersecurity). The numerous practical experiences will be grounded in empirical studies, for example, PD’s research on implementing digitization and the online access law (OZG) in Germany or the meta-analysis of the Hertie School, which will present a paper on the future of administrative innovation with specific theses and recommendations.
The Festival Highlight Hour will take place from 1 to 2 p.m. each day. At the center of the two parallel live programme strands broadcast in German and English, renowned German journalist Astrid Frohloff and the internationally acclaimed urban researcher and Festival President Charles Landry will present the best of the daily programme and link the varying topics with news, discussion partners and further creative interventions.
The three candidates for German chancellor, Annalena Baerbock (Greens), Armin Laschet (CDU) and Olaf Scholz (SPD), will explain their ideas for the renewal of the administration just a few days before the Bundestag parliament elections (26 September) and will face questions from one of the largest and most influential groups of voters - the five million employees in Germany’s public sector. Any festival attendee can submit their questions to the candidates now at festival@creativebureaucracy.org.
The burning question of how the public sector can return to a fiscally sustainable budget policy after the crisis will be discussed by Werner Gatzer, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance, and Wolfgang Förster, budget and finance expert in the Saarland Ministry of Finance and Europe.
As part of a series of sessions on diversity as a key driver, Dr. Pierette Herzberger-Fofana, Member of the European Parliament, and Tiaji Sio, founder of the Diplomats of Color initiative at the German Foreign Office, discuss best practices and the central importance of diversity for a modern and sustainable administration.
"The programme combines the big questions of administrative modernisation with concrete suggestions for successful implementation," says Stéphane Beemelmans,Managing Director of Festival partner PD - Consultants to the Public Sector, "We are pleased here to be able to contribute experiences from our practice as a public company."
In the international programme, Taiwan's Digital Minister Audrey Tang shares how this Asian democracy created and implemented what many consider to be an exemplary pandemic response. Kate Raworth, Oxford professor and visionary behind the "doughnut" model of social and planetary boundaries, presents her "toolkit" for turning this alternative economic model into practice by federal, state, city and local governments. Catherine Stihler, CEO of the Creative Commons movement and former Scottish minister, explores what is next for digitalisation. Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School professor and consultant to the U.S. government, discusses how administrators can make better decisions by eliminating excessive ‘Noise’, expanding on ideas from his latest book.
Participation in the event is free and interested parties can register via the Festival homepage (creativebureaucracy.org/register).
The Creative Bureaucracy Festival is supported by two festival partners, Falling Walls Foundation and PD - Advisors to the Public Sector. Numerous other national and international actors from politics, administration, science, society and the media will again be actively involved in programme development and events in 2021.
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
