GovMesh @ Festival of Innovation 2025

What’s GovMesh?

GovMesh aims to convene a small group of governments, facilitating candid discussions between a group of countries that may not usually meet, focusing on specific strengths and weaknesses. The dynamic format will allow countries to be selected based on their specific complementary strengths and weaknesses.

Why the need for GovMesh?

GovMesh was born out of the idea that when it comes to government innovation, digital government is a uniquely level playing field, where nimble & lean bureaucracies are just as likely to set the pace as the world’s largest economic actors.

How is it conducted?

The event will be a half day-long, closed-door discussion. 

Each participant will present on a specific strength in their digital government ecosystem in the morning, which will entail a Q&A session after each presentation. 

An afternoon roundtable/unconference session will follow, giving participants a chance to candidly discuss some of the challenges and opportunities with emerging tech applications in government services.

Objectives:

1. Create a space for countries to have novel discussions about digital government beyond their usual partners

2. Develop a collection of case studies based on countries' presentations in the morning of the event

3. Build a community of practice between participating countries

4. Launch the first in a series of GovMesh summits

Goal/output: 

A GovMesh special report, co-produced by GovInsider and interweave.gov, will feature the individual agency stories from this event. The report will be a work-in-progress to accumulate more of such stories in future GovMesh events.