Nicoleta Colomeet, Director, eGovernance Agency of Moldova

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

My role is to bridge the real life needs and issues I see surfacing in the lives of our citizens, into our roadmap.

At the eGovernance Agency we have a broad mandate, we oversee everything from the eGov architecture and its reuse, to how investments are made into digital transformation projects, all the way to adoption and user satisfaction.

I see myself as the advocate for the needs of the citizens and how we break the bureaucracy that keeps us from becoming the friendliest digital state in the region, and why not the world.  

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?

It’s my favorite story - about how we, in Moldova, have “digitalised” birth, as we call it.

In a nutshell, after I gave birth to my second child, my son, only a few hours later, the information about him became available to me in our super app EVO, and the same later on, when I checked and I saw that his picture appeared later on, so that I knew his passport was ready.

This is a testament to how a strategic and systemic approach to building a digital state is shaping and making a real impact on lives.

If with my first daughter I had to make three trips during pregnancy, and then submit two online application, with my son, I just went to the doctor, and the digital state took care of the rest - from medical leave, to receiving state benefits. All in less than three years distance.

And that is our next generation approach to service delivery, where an event has a ripple effect across the wider systems and we’ll move from call request, to push into data registries, we call this MConnect Events.  

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?

It is impactful in the sense that it shows how micro improvements can drive real benefit to citizens and the government alike. We have in our supper app EVO all of the information on you as a citizen, or your company that you own and operate.

Within those datasets, there was one that was bugging me and a couple of our team mates - we could see our debts to the fiscal service, but there was no simple way to pay them.

Something as simple as a button next to a red hued amount drove tax payments through the roof in one week only, amounting for more than a quarter of all the payments we have processed through the app during the year.  

It is the truest example of how meeting the needs and solving pains and driving satisfaction and impact.  

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.

We reconfirmed actually again and again that assuming is a bad strategy. You can set out to consider that you know everything and you have the best plan, and yet people will surprise you.

So my general lesson, which I am reconfirming again and again, is that assumptions are better left aside, and hypothesis need to be tested and confirmed.

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?

We’re exploring a couple of use cases currently, for the last mile interactions - chat bots for accessing or requesting services, support, but we’re also looking at the first mile optimisations.

I don’t think that AI in itself is the solution to make services more inclusive and trustworthy, it is a means.

We’re working on optimised experience building, but we don’t want to just barely scratch the surface, we are working on a through AI strategy that will help us leverage the vast amount of data for better decision making and predicting future needs.   

To subscribe to the GovInsider bulletin, click here.

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?

In our own neck of the woods, we are doing two big pushes: our statewide design system, bringing officially UX designers to the public sector digital transformation table, as well as pushing for the events based trigger approach in the way our systems communicate.

We are working actively on our version of the EUDI Wallet and we’re incredibly excited for making it public in 2026. 

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

Don’t assume and don’t think you are the user - because more often than not you are not. Don’t digitalise bureaucracy, as tempting or as forcefully someone might insist that you do. And test and communicate with your audience. And lastly, done is still better than perfect, provided you don’t cut all the corners. 

And always ask the - why? Why are we doing this? 

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

The people around me.

We are very lucky in Moldova to live in a very small and connected society - the six degrees of separation is reduced in our country to about three or four.

I am carefully browsing and listening to the needs and frustrations people express and look continuously how we can transform that into informed and transformative experiences.  

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

The most performant public delivery service where everything is proactive and you’re only notified about changes or actions that you need to take.

No red tape, no unnecessary trips or talking and interacting with people. And this is actually what we’re building and our ethos. 

10) Outside tech, what excites you the most?

Hiking and getting lost in nature. But generally I am obsessed with people-centric design and the way everyday things work - taking a close look at all the little decisions and communication.