Can Innovation-as-a-Service close the gap between policy and implementation?

In a conversation I had on the sidelines of GovInsider's Festival of Innovation (FOI), Non Arkara and Sakthi Ranaganathan shared about an unexpected cross-border collaboration between a Thai government agency and a New Zealand tech startup.

Arkara is the Senior Expert in Smart City Promotion at Thailand’s Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA), while Ranaganathan is the Founder and CEO of JIX Reality who also leads the AI Center of Excellence Initiative within Christchurch’s Smart City Innovation Team.  

They first met at an ASEAN smart cities showcase event organised by the NZ government and the ASEAN Smart Cities Network last November.

Arkara said he was inspired by JIX's Innovation-as-a-Service model which has proven success tackling governance challenges in several local cities like Christchurch, Auckland and Palmerston. 

He saw the potential to bring this model to Thailand and Southeast Asia. 

Subsequent meetings in Thailand solidified, with the soft launch of Smart and Liveable City Lab supported by the Thai and NZ governments.  

The lab is co-owned by JIX and Thailand's Smart and Livable Cities Company (SLIC), which helps execute smart city projects on behalf of DEPA.

The lab aims to empower local governments across Southeast Asia with emerging tech tools, with a focus on four domains that are most relevant for the region, said Arkara.

They are environmental monitoring and disaster management, smart mobility and road safety, energy management, and governance.  

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Innovation-as-a-Service model

Instead of just providing a product or service, the Innovation-as-a-Service model entails working alongside a government agency to ideate and implement a solution, Arkara explained. 

He added that this model enables local governments to quickly and effectively adopt innovative technologies targeted at solving a particular problem.  

“We work with government organisations to build innovations within their requirements,” Ranaganathan said, adding that JIX has delivered successful proofs of concepts (POCs) to Health NZ, Education NZ, Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre and more.  

“We wanted to bring some of the digital solutions and harness the experiences [from NZ] to Thailand and scale it across Southeast Asia,” said Arkara. 

Arkara and Ranaganathan then connected with both public and private sector stakeholders in Thailand to find out their interest to fund and incorporate such a model within local governments. 

Building local capacities 

At the centre of Thailand's digital economy ecosystem, DEPA will support the lab in working with not only local governments, but startups, universities and researchers to build their innovation capacities, said Arkara.

Among local governments, he observed a recurring pattern for them to revert to “tried and tested” but outdated solutions to tackle smart city challenges.  

 
For example, governments might resort to building more roads to tackle traffic congestion, or more hospitals to manage healthcare needs despite inadequate staffing.

Yet, this does not address the root of the problems, compared to immediately adopting digital solutions like telemedicine and traffic monitoring.
 

“There is [also] a classic chicken-and-egg scenario. Local governments are expected to produce a feasibility report [before adopting an innovation], but you cannot have a report without knowing what you want to do right?”

As for startups, he highlighted their tendency to offer rigid, pre-made solutions that local cities found too expensive or inflexible. 

Arkara said that the lab will advocate for both local governments and startups to start with user needs, as well as to adapt existing technologies and processes wherever possible. 

This method offers several advantages: lower procurement costs, reduced R&D time, quick wins, and broader public support relative to getting funding for an infrastructure project.

Adapting the NZ approach to Thailand and SEA 

Compared to many countries, NZ local governments have considerable autonomy in governance. While in many cities in Asia including Thailand, the federal government tends to set the policy directions for state governments, said Arkara.

On how the duo is planning to adapt the NZ approach to Thailand and Southeast Asia, Ranganathan shared an observation around how necessity became the mother of invention – or rather, innovation, in Christchurch where he is based.

As an international student who arrived in NZ on the day of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, Ranaganathan observed how the disaster “prompted government organisations to start with a clean slate, embracing new ways of working”.  

“This event created an opportunity for the government to reassess its procurement processes and reduce bureaucratic red tape”. 

Notable public spaces that emerged as a result were the Tūranga Library and the Margaret Mahy Family Playground, ensuring rhat the city's recovery mirrored the residents' desires. 

Arkara shared that the Thai government is also increasingly adopting a bottom-up approach towards urban planning, learning from the costly mistakes of the top-down approach.

Reflecting on his six years at DEPA, he shared how a top-down approach lacked citizen buy-in, rendering projects ineffective as they did not address the needs on the ground.  

DEPA subsequently focused on empowering local governments to collaborate with citizens on city planning by providing them with technical support and funding – leading to pilot projects with shared success and minimised risk of failure. 

“Essentially, we integrated top-down resources with bottom-up insights,” he highlighted. 

What if governments are not bounded by scripts? 

Arkara shared that the lab aims to tackle the three “what ifs”:  
 

1. What if we could instill an “Innovation-as-a-Service" mindset in local administrators? Instead of relying on outdated methods, they could adopt a problem-centered approach and leverage technologies to implement a cost-effective solution.  
    

2. What if we can empower everyone to be innovators? Following a design thinking approach by identifying pain points, prototyping solutions and iterating, the lab hopes to democratise innovation at all levels – beyond the techies. 
    

3. What if innovation can generate revenue and cost-savings? Arkara proposed a “steal and improve strategy” by evaluating current processes and leveraging what already works to make them more efficient. This can generate savings that become reinvestable profits.  

In order to achieve the “what ifs”, they put forward a 4P approach: People, public sector, private sector, and partnership.  

“We will address people’s pain points, secure public sector support which is DEPA who champions digital initiatives and understands the value of hackathons, leverage private sector resources and capabilities, and foster collaborative partnerships,” Arkara explained. 

Arkara and Ranaganathan spoke at the recent FOI conference. You can watch their respective presentations and panels on-demand here:

• Presentation: Harnessing AI and Emerging Tech: Accelerating Smart City Innovation through Rapid Prototyping, Sakthi Ranganathan, Head of AI Center of Excellence Initiatives, Smart City Innovation, Christchurch, New Zealand
• Panel Discussion: Creating a Dynamic Public Sector in a Volatile World, Dr Non Arkaraprasertkul, Senior Expert, Smart City Promotion Department, Digital Economy Promotion Agency, Thailand (panelist)