The Creative Bureaucracy Festival 2021

THE FOURTH CREATIVE BUREAUCRACY FESTIVAL CAME TO AN END WITH NEW RECORDS:

18,000 creative minds and administrative visionaries from 94 countries participated in this year’s Festival. The comprehensive Festival programme included 150 digital sessions and over 400 international speakers.

“The Creative Bureaucracy Festival is not only a forum for the best ideas for bureaucracy, but has also become an engine for making those ideas a reality,” says Festival President Charles Landry. “After a year of pressure and new challenges, the festival was again the place where bureaucracy innovators could share ideas and get the recognition they deserve.”

Leading by example in administrative innovation were the three Creative Bureaucracy Festival Award winners: the Finnish government and Demos Helsinki received the award for the Steering 2020 initiative and its Humble Government approach, which bases innovation processes on continuous review and ongoing testing. Also honored was Hamdan Abdul Majeed, executive director of the nonprofit Think City, which reversed the decline of Malaysia’s George Town. Tiaji Sio, founder of the diversity network Diplomats of Color received the award for being the driving force behind the anti-racism discourse in the German Foreign Service.

Festival participants discussed the challenges and perspectives for the public sector in 150 English- and German-language digital contributions featuring some 400 speakers. Topics ranged from fundamental questions about the aspirations and strength of the state (e.g., “humble government” or social sustainability) to the administration’s ability to act in extraordinary situations (e.g., crisis resilience) to concrete aspects of current work in policy implementation (e.g., procurement or cybersecurity).

THE FESTIVAL IN NUMBERS

5 Days - 150 Sessions - 400 Speakers - 18.000 Unique Visitors - 94 Nationalities