Updating the operating system of society

Governance has always been about a social contract between the citizens and the state, in which the former surrenders a degree of control and freedom in exchange for security and stability. 

This is why the Global Government Technology Centre (GGTC) Berlin’s Founding Managing Director, Manuel Kilian, views public sector governance not merely as an administrative function but as the operating system of society. 

Kilian is one of the speakers at GovInsider’s Festival of Innovation 2026, starting on March 3, 2026.

The GGTC is a World Economic Forum (WEF) hub that helps governments around the world move from talking to implementing Govtech as globally shared public infrastructure. 

Speaking to GovInsider, Kilian notes that digital transformation and Govtech are now integral to the social contract between the state and its citizens, rather than an add-on. 

The “digital state” that is emerging due to digitalisation of public services should be treated as a fundamental branch of government, just like defence or finance, complete with its own theories and expert practitioners. 

Elaborating on this, he notes that governments today increasingly govern through identity systems, payment rails, data-sharing layers, and digital service platforms, which mediate how people access their rights and services. 

“This makes digital infrastructure and digital statecraft fundamental to how the operating system of society actually runs,” he notes. 

Noting that the “operating system” is far from perfect, he suggests that the way forward is to utilise technology to enhance the system, rather than merely automate it.  

The risk of not implementing technology 

The risk of innovation is real, but the risk of not doing anything is often higher.  

While we must consider the risks of adopting digital ID or artificial intelligence (AI), we should also consider the risks of sticking with our current systems, says Kilian. 

He adds that governments can improve the imperfections in existing digital systems. 

The key question that policymakers need to ask is “how can technology help remove bias, increase fairness and make state services more reliable and citizen-centric?” 

“If governments treat digital tools as levers to upgrade the operating system of society, rather than isolated projects or regulatory afterthoughts, they can strengthen the social contract and deliver a more capable, trusted state,” he says. 

Governments need to treat the digital government as a living product, rather than a one-off infrastructure project.  

Traditionally, governments are used to commissioning “monuments”, which are large systems or reforms that take years to design and deliver.

“That mindset does not work for software,” he emphasises. 

Working in iterations 

Kilian says that governments need to work on projects in iterations: launching early, making continuous improvements, and staying flexible as technology and citizen needs evolve. 

A government service is never “finished” once launched, with the real work starting when it meets users, he says 

Kilian notes that another success factor for implementing Govtech is the willingness to tackle both technical debt and process bureaucracy together. 

“You cannot build good digital services on top of a messy, outdated bureaucracy. Many reform efforts focus narrowly on IT systems, but ignore the paper-era rules, redundant steps, and fragmented responsibilities beneath them,” he says.  

Giving examples of Singapore and the UAE, Kilian says that the two countries streamlined processes and institutions even as they digitalised.  

To emulate these two nations, “governments must put user experience (UX) at the centre rather than designing internal administrative convenience,” he says. 

A good example of this approach is Ukraine’s Diia app, “which is a deliberate attempt to make government services attractive, intuitive, and competitive with the best consumer apps, signalling a shift from ‘it works for us’ to ‘it works for people’”. 

Adoption, not deployment, should measure success 

Kilian stresses that the true metric of success is user adoption, not deployment.  

Governments have historically celebrated the launch of portals, apps, or platforms, even with low uptake or fragmented use, he says, adding that the modern digital state must be judged by how many citizens and businesses actually use the service, how often, and at what level of satisfaction.  

In this context, he argues for deeper public–private collaboration in building Govtech products.  

“The private sector is structurally focused on adoption and revenue, and brings hard-won expertise in onboarding, engagement, and growth that the public sector often lacks.  

“When you combine iterative development, cleaned-up bureaucracy, citizen-centric UX, and a relentless focus on adoption, you get an emerging model of successful, modern governance in

the Govtech era,” he says. 

However, he adds an important caveat.  

This partnership needs to be a balance, not a handover, he says, adding: “There are deep concerns around data sovereignty, privacy, and over-reliance on external vendors.” 

The real challenge for governments is to decide where on the spectrum they want to sit between tight in-house control and extensive outsourcing, and to move along that spectrum in an informed way rather than by default, he says.  

“This includes getting smarter about cloud and data, for example, by using multi-cloud architectures, hosting sensitive data in known jurisdictions, and segmenting what must remain sovereign from what can safely live on commercial platforms.” 

Done well, such partnerships allow governments to tap into emerging innovations offered by the private sector, while learning internally and retaining strategic control over the most critical pieces of the digital state. 

Examples of successful Govtech implementations 

Kilian refers to Singapore’s Singpass as an example of a successful Govtech implementation. 

“It [Singpass] exemplifies how a state can successfully build and run core digital public infrastructure in-house.” 

Pointing to how ubiquitous it is in Singapore’s economy, Kilian says that this shows what is possible when a government has strong internal Govtech capacity. 

“Singpass serves as a model of state-led digital infrastructure that is technically robust, broadly adopted, and tightly integrated into everyday economic life, illustrating how well-designed, reusable building blocks are the foundation of modern digital governance,” he adds. 

He also cites the example of India’s digital ID platform Aadhaar as a “powerful illustration of how digital public infrastructure can scale when it is built as a core, reusable component”.  

Kilian notes that India was able to create a national ID system spanning 1.4 billion people, “because software, once built, can be scaled at almost zero marginal cost”.  

He says that Aadhaar, along with the broader India Stack and the United Payments Interface (UPI), are good examples of the “logic of building foundational layers like identity and payments once, centrally, and to a high standard, then making them widely available across the ecosystem”.  

This, he argues, is the opposite of each agency building its own mediocre, siloed solutions; it shows how a well-architected digital public infrastructure (DPI) can become a backbone for both government services and private sector innovation. 

Kilian concludes by saying that combining robust DPI with user-centric design and private sector partnerships, governments can do more than just keep up with AI and other technological innovations.  

They [governments] can actually restore public trust in governance and renew the social contract with citizens, he adds. 

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Manuel Kilian is one of the speakers at the Festival of Innovation 2026, happening in Singapore on 3 & 4 March. You may register here.