Anita Fraser, Digital Profession Community Manager, Australian Public Service

1) How do you use your role to ensure that technology and policy are truly inclusive?

Early on in my role, I established the Accessibility and Inclusion community.

This was to bring forward opportunities for public servants to learn how to work and build products and services for diverse communities, understanding their needs, challenges, and lived experiences, and ensuring these insights directly inform decision-making.

Additionally, I support our community leads to help build their communities based on disciplines (ie. Agile, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML), Content Design, User Research, etc), promoting best practice and work that aligns with the Digital Service Standard.   

2) What’s a moment in your career when you saw firsthand how technology or a new policy changed a citizen’s life for the better?

Interestingly enough, most of my ‘aha’ and ‘wow’ moments weren’t exactly technology or policy related changes.

Learning and experiencing the Service Design and Delivery Process was a game changer for me in the way undertake our work. The world is changing quicker and more frequently than normal. There is more expectations from our citizen to provide a more seamless experience when interacting with government.

Constant iteration of what we provide is essential with the mindset of "how can we do this better?"  

3) What was the most impactful project you worked on this year, and how did you measure its success in building trust and serving the needs of the public?

A successful Innovation month. Every year in July, a handful of volunteer public servants come together to host a series of events on innovation.

With over 20 events and more than 9,000 attendees, every year the numbers continue to grow with more engagement from public servants and agencies undertaking their own events.

This year our theme was ‘Risk. Resolve. Results.’ which had a heavy focus on the risks of using AI, the opportunities and governance required to ensure public trust whilst being effective, efficient and transparent in the work the public service undertakes.

I am motivated to grow agency and public servant participation in this special month celebrating the talent across government.

4) What was one unexpected lesson you learned this year about designing for real people? This can be about a specific project or a broader lesson about your work.

There is still a lot more work that needs to be done around trust within and outside of government.

A large component of what I do is about creating a safe space for public servants to come together to support one another regardless of where they work.

Trust can be challenging when individual egos or agency silos overshadow collaboration. It undermines shared purpose of serving the public in a more cohesive and seamless experience when interacting with government products and services.

Digital Profession communities are purposely agency agnostic to address this and to encourage more voices across the public service to be heard. 

5) We hear a lot about AI. What's a practical example of how AI can be used to make government services more inclusive and trustworthy?

As part of my role, I host and coordinate events and training and this is done by seeking out stories, emerging tech and case studies from around the world.

One of the most interesting sessions we hosted was ‘Measuring the human impacts of policy with machine learning’. It was a project led by RMIT and Gradient Institute. They were examining ways to predict and monitor the human impacts created by a policy. What a great way to mitigate any risks and unintended harm a policy may cause through the use of AI.

Through our future events and AI/ML community, we plan to showcase more case studies where AI has been successful in building trust and inclusivity.    

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6) How are you preparing for the next wave of change in the public sector? What new skill, approach, or technology are you most excited to explore in the coming year?

Based on the feedback from our membership and to operationalise the Data, Digital and Cyber Workforce Plan by uplifting technical capabilities, 2026 preparations have already commenced.

I have multiple series planned to cover new topics on inclusion, digital leadership and emerging technology. I’m excited to introduce new partners in capability uplift and source future collaborations with industry to provide tools and resources for our members.

7) What advice do you have for public sector innovators who want to build a career focused on serving all citizens?

Start by listening - engage with people, other agencies, industry and communities. Understand their needs, and if you can, do it through research and co-design.

The most amazing products and services I have witnessed have been created truly through working in the open, building accessibility and inclusivity in from the beginning and are from a multidisciplinary team with amazing leadership to be their advocates.  

8) Who inspires you to build a more inclusive and trustworthy public sector?

Our community leads are practitioners in their field, have full time jobs and still volunteer their time to pay it forward and be stewards for good within the public service.

It’s them that help build a more inclusive and trustworthy public sector. They inspire me.  

9) If you had an unlimited budget, what would your dream project be?

I would create a fully integrated, AI-powered platform that connects all public servants across all tiers of government, offering personalised learning pathways, mentoring opportunities, real-time collaboration, and predictive analytics to anticipate future capability needs - ensuring inclusivity and accessibility at every level.

But most of all a full multidisciplinary product team to support the community engagement and platform.

Without the team, we lose so much momentum in product iteration and really drawing insights on how best to provide a great product to our members and ultimately digital uplift. 

10) Outside tech, what excites you the most?

It remains the same - community. I’m passionate about building strong, connected communities - whether through volunteering, mentoring, or even creating a rainforest of house plants to build a creative space.