February 20, 2025 • 47 mins
What Digital Transformation for Government Means in 2025
Today, my guest is Vijay Luthra. Vijay is the managing partner of CEVA Global in the UK, and he works to help government organizations in the UK and UAE to develop digital transformation strategies.
Given the pace of change, particularly in the US, it's hard to say how long our conversation will remain relevant. It's hard to talk about the political side of government without taking sides, but we did our best to avoid that
Vijay is, in his words, a former public servant and a recovering politician. He works in social enterprise and has deep expertise in healthcare and transformation. Today we decided to talk about what digital transformation for government means in the chaos that is early 2025.
Resource Links:
Vijay K Luthra LinkedIn
CEVA Global Website | LinkedIn
VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity Harvard Busness Review | Wikipedia
The National Programme for Information Technology ( NPfIT )
- Making IT work: harnessing the power of health information technology to improve care in England
- The UK's National Programme for IT: Why was it dismantled?
- The medium is the message
- The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (1967) Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore Amazon CA | Indigo
Dan Honig - Mission Driven Bureaucrats | Amazon CA
Demis Hassabis
Press release: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024
Recorded: Feb, 2025
This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit northern.co/311-podcast/
We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to the311@northern.co.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul (00:31):
This is the 311 Podcast.
I'm your host, Paul Bellows.
This is a show about the peoplethat make digital government
work for the public service.
If you'd like to find out more,visit Northern.
co.
Today, my guest is Vijay Luthra.
Vijay is the managing partner ofCEVA Global in the UK, and he
(00:52):
works to help governmentorganizations in the UK and UAE
to develop digitaltransformation strategies.
Vijay is, in his words, a formerpublic servant and a recovering
politician.
He works in social enterpriseand has deep expertise in
healthcare and transformation.
When I met Vijay first, I knewwe'd have a good conversation.
(01:13):
Today we decided to talk aboutwhat digital transformation for
government means in the chaosthat is early 2025.
We spoke in February of 2025 andtalked about the headwinds
facing government at this momentin time.
Given the pace of change,particularly in the US, it's
hard to say how long ourconversation will remain
relevant.
(01:34):
It's hard to talk about thepolitical side of government
without taking sides, but we didour best to avoid that.
We talked about institutionaltrust and what it means when the
entrepreneurial forces of bigtech come for the scale and pace
of government.
Vijay and I both believe thatpublicly funded and operated
services are essential for ajust society.
(01:55):
And I hope that wherever youfall on the political spectrum,
that that's something we canagree on.
Here's my conversation withVijay Luthra.
Vijay K Luthra (02:10):
Hi Paul.
I'm Vijay, Vijay Kay Luther.
I am the managing partner atCEVA.
We are a boutique consultancyand we work with government and
public services on, principally,on delivery and implementation
challenges.
So we are particularly focusedon transformation;
transformation that perhaps hasgot a little stuck.
(02:31):
But because we do a lot of workwhere transformation has got
stuck we also do a lot of workwith people who know, who want
to know, how to set uptransformation to succeed from
the outset.
Paul (02:42):
So Vijay, we were gonna talk with today is why is
digital government hard in 2025?
And what are the strategies forfinding success in 2025 in our
current let's call it political,social and media conditions,
which is all of these things.
As we go in, I don't wanna divetoo deep into the conspiracy
theory of what folks in certainparts of certain political camps
(03:05):
are doing.
But it does, seem like in theU.S Election and where money is
getting spent, and what kinds ofmessages are getting socialized,
and the funny little lens that Ithink is interesting is, as a
Canadian, I've been watchingRyan Reynolds and Blake Lively
and their media spat they'rehaving around this film that
they did.
Where both groups appear to bebuying media and positioning
(03:27):
stories and statements, andthey're actually hiring firms to
do reputation management.
There's a bit of an undercurrentof is the story we hear a
reliable story.
There's sort of the media angle,do we need a little bit more
critical listening ability, youknow, critical skills to to look
at stories we're seeing online.
What is true, what is not, howdo you find truth?
I think it doesn't hurt toremind people that Media
(03:50):
literacy is more important nowthan maybe it's ever been, in
terms of how stories get to usand what we need to pay
attention to and where realityis in terms of digital
government.
Vijay K Luthra (03:58):
Yeah, very much and I think disinformation is
becoming more and more of anissue.
So my mom is 75, right?
And she's of that generationwhere she's not what you would
call a digital native.
So she uses Facebook.
She she texts, she WhatsApps allof those different things.
(04:19):
But I would say she, she's notnecessarily digitally savvy in
the way lots of people in hergeneration are not and the
ability of people to be able tosift, not necessarily truth from
fiction because it's morefundamental than that, but
opinion from facts.
And and this is, I think one ofthe things that's interesting
(04:43):
about the way in which opinionand facts have become blended
is.
as things which 10 or 20 yearsago, we would not have
considered contestable, I'llgive you an example, Vaccines
for example,
Paul (05:01):
For example.
Yeah.
Vijay K Luthra (05:02):
yeah things like that principles, which we would
concepts, which we would nothave considered contestable in
any serious way.
Are becoming contestable.
And one of the reasons they'vebecome contestable is because of
the way social media hasreshaped narrative and social
(05:23):
media has put pressure onmainstream media to reshape
narrative.
So what we've had is thisconvergence of, not facts versus
opinion, but this blending offacts and opinions or just
opinions presented as facts.
And if you look at the logicalprogression of where, that goes.
(05:43):
Well, I mean, look, we're seeingit.
We've now got a a vaccineefficacy denier as Secretary of
Health and Human Services in theUS government.
Where does that take us?
Some people say we're in apost-truth world, I tend to
think that term is a littletrite but I understand the, you
know, what they're trying to getat, which is that the absolute
(06:04):
objective truth is no longerenough because everything is
contestable.
Paul (06:11):
Yes to everything you said.
And, the dichotomy appears tobe, something that just comes
down to, our, I think ourevolution as a species and the
fact that we've been launchedinto a global era without the
cognitive skills to cope with aglobal era.
In the seventies, the 1900 andseventies, when I was a child,
we had local news.
That's primarily what youconsumed.
(06:32):
And they would talk about thecity zoo and city hall and the
bus strike or the garbagecollection.
There were issues that werelocal and then towards the end
of that broadcast, we'd havesome national news and then a
little bit of internationalnews.
And that was storytelling.
That was news.
That was the media.
It was very local.
It was very cognitivelyaccessible.
(06:52):
I could understand it.
It was related to me.
Today, news is all existential,global, and so removed from my
day-to-day reality, I'm not evensure what's happening in my city
anymore, unless I find anindependent news source or, a
blogger.
I think part of that has led usto a point where we do not trust
(07:12):
institutions anymore.
The institutional information,institutional news,
institutional press releases,information coming from
governments becomesintrinsically less trustworthy
than the thing I can cognitivelyunderstand, which is people I
know, people I have a trustrelationship with, people I've
met, or people I've connectedwith online.
Or at least, people I perceivethat I've connected with online.
(07:34):
And so our news has become asocial, our truth has become
social.
Vijay K Luthra (07:39):
Yes.
Paul (07:39):
Ironically, I didn't mean to put those two words together
given the US president'spersonal social media platform,
but, there's an irony there thatthe truth is social today
Versus, factual, institutional,authoritative, we've lost all of
those things.
So, we're ungrounded in terms ofour truth and reality in this
moment in a way that I don'tthink as a society and as a
(08:00):
species we've really beenprepared for in the past.
Vijay K Luthra (08:03):
No.
I guess the other thing I wouldadd to that is that the pace of
news and media has changedradically.
So when I was growing up, we- soI'm in the UK, right?
I'm in Surrey in the UK not theSurrey in British Columbia.
But both very fine places.
In the UK, when I was growingup, we used to have, you'd have
news bulletins at fixed times.
(08:25):
There'd be a news at 6:00 PM inthe evening.
There'd be a news at 9:00 PM inthe evening.
Be a news at night at 10:00 PMin the evening.
And I remember, the 10:00 PMnews bulletin was pretty much
the last thing my dad used towatch before he went to bed.
But now, we have news on tap 24hours a day.
But alongside that, going backto, what's contestable, a lot of
(08:46):
that news now comes, more so inthe US but increasingly in the
UK and Europe, comes with anideological bias attached to it.
It's a model that's beenpioneered by Fox News.
We've now also got GB News inthe UK.
It's quite troubling becauseagain, it's contributing to this
idea that Everything iscontestable but as you allude to
(09:10):
the, where, how we consumeinformation and where we consume
information from has changedquite radically.
So that trust piece that youmentioned you're absolutely
right.
Trust has been eroded ingovernments, in Public
institutions, but I would alsosay in the media.
If you look at, and I don't havethe figures to hand, but if you
(09:32):
look at the BBC and itsreputation, look, let's look at
this in the round.
The BBC news, in particular,still pushes out pretty high
quality, objective news content.
Has it changed?
Yes.
But is it still, trusted bymany, many people?
Yes.
Is it as trusted by many people,as many people as it was 20
(09:54):
years ago?
No.
Even a news source, you know,CNN for example, equally high
quality news output.
So even those sources of news,which have always had a high
degree of fidelity and trustattached to them.
They're the level of trust andfidelity is being eroded.
(10:16):
If I look at some of the reasonswhy it's being eroded we see a
great deal of polarization insociety.
Where I think we are seeing lessof that and I'm contemplating
this point from a place where Ican't really go and check
whether my hypothesis is true.
We live in, in a democraticworld, but there are parts of
the world that are notdemocratic.
(10:39):
So my.limited understanding of,what the information and news
landscape in Russia is, forexample, is that it is not as
diverse and contested as it isin, say, the UK and Canada
because essentially, everythingis controlled by the government.
(10:59):
And there are other places whereyou could, you know Iran, might
be another example.
Those are not democratic nationstates.
And therefore the informationlandscape is not contested in
the same way as it is in thedemocratic world.
Now I'm not for a second,suggesting that we should move
away from democracy.
But I definitely think thatthere is a challenge for
(11:21):
democratic governments, theworld over as to how you protect
that democracy.
Europe, and other places in theworld are slipping towards
populism, Italy, France the US,but populism is on the rise.
So it, it's only a short stepfrom populism.
Vladimir Putin is a populist,right?
(11:43):
Let's make no bones about it.
Potentially it's a very shortstep, for, say, France or Italy,
to go from where they are now toa, sort of, trumpesque situation
where you have a populistelected to office who, seeks to
then radically remake, the sortof the government and public
(12:05):
services landscape.
And we've already seen thatTrump is moving at pace to do
that.
Paul (12:09):
I think you can say, it's hard to speak about what happens
in a society, but you cancertainly say people who
disagree with Putin tend to havea disproportionate amount of
tumbles out of hotel windows.
Vijay K Luthra (12:20):
Yes.
Paul (12:21):
You only need more than one of those instances would
indicate there's some sort of apattern there of maybe things
are not above board in Russia.
I think that's safe to say.
We've got a living case study inCanada though right now where I
sit, in Edmonton, Alberta and weare under attack by the US It is
a trade war that is remarkablylike an actual war in that our
(12:41):
sovereignty is being threatened.
But I will say the creation ofan enemy has changed the
political dynamic, regardless ofwhat size of the political
spectrum you're on.
Polling has swung by 20 pointsin Canada in a matter of weeks.
And I can't think of a time inmy living memory where I saw
that type of a swing inpolitical opinion in this
(13:03):
particular nation, quite thisquickly.
And, towards towards one partythat was really plummeting in
the polls.
There's been a pivot.
So we're looking into newleadership, et cetera.
And I don't mean to say that tomake any political point about
Canada, but to identify thecreation of an enemy is an
interesting strategy.
And I think this is one where anenemy has created itself for
Canada, or at least an opponent,and, one off the things that's
(13:24):
true about populism thegenerative act of creating
opponents, be that a politicalside, a economic posture,
whatever that thing is; thepersonality of a particular
leader, the age of a leader, allof these things can be
weaponized to create opponents,and people respond remarkably
(13:45):
well to an opponent.
Once you have opposition, nowyou've created community.
Now you've created solidarity.
Now you've created alignment andthat it is one of the tools.
It's a legitimate tools.
I don't mean to say that thepresence of an opponent, should
intrinsically be suspicious, butdefinitely the pattern of
populism is to identifyopponents, be that opponent, the
(14:08):
country of UKraine or, what,whatever that might be.
Once create these opponents,suddenly we can rally people, we
can get alignment, we can getbuy-in.
And so the creation of opponentsshould, we should be skeptical,
at the very least, of that.
But what's interesting, in theUS context in particular right
(14:29):
now, is the government itselfhas been made the opponent, the
institution, the concept of, oh,there's a deep state and that
deep state is against yourinterests and also against my
interest as a leader.
I'm, putting words in the mouthof particular US leadership
right now but that is theplaybook that's being followed
right now.
(14:51):
And would we stop being able totrust what government says.
These are the people we've hiredand elected and commissioned to
take our tax dollars and buildour roads and teach our children
and operate our healthcare andrun our military.
And if we intrinsically can'ttrust them, how do we get
anything done?
We're, this point of it'simpossible now to accomplish
anything.
Vijay K Luthra (15:11):
Yeah.
This is the logical endpoint ofa narrative that has been around
for, 50 or 60 years.
In the UK we saw it inThatcherism, where you have a
drive for for a small statebecause the ideological platform
is that a small state is moreefficient, that government
(15:32):
should not spend money,government should not interfere
where the private sector cantake a role et cetera, et
cetera.
Margaret Thatcher famouslytalked about rolling back the
frontiers of the state.
And we've seen really a sort ofworldwide trend, you know what
some people might call neoneoliberalism, and it is that to
(15:53):
an extent,.
In government itself, you've hadthis culture of of
Managerialism, which reallyemerged properly in the eighties
again, in the UK, New Zealand,and in Australia where you know
that you have this philosophicalapproach to government where
it's efficiency driven.
it's about metrics.
It's the idea that you canmanage you can manage to
(16:17):
targets.
And I, think some of what we'reseeing at the moment is it's
almost the the ideologicalendpoint of that, which is that
government is actually theenemy.
It stands in our way, stops usfrom getting stuff done which of
course is not the purpose ofgovernment.
I'm reminded, there's an OliverWendell Holmes quote I like
(16:38):
paying taxes.
It buys me civilization.
And of course, what he wastalking about was the order that
governments bring and servicesand, the sort of the, there's
some very basic things that,that I believe should be the
role of government policing andnational security for example.
(16:59):
Would I want our police forcesto be privatized?
Well, no, because then in whoseinterests do they do they
operate?
Do no doubt some of yourlisteners would point to the
fact that the police are alreadynot operating in the interest of
citizens in many places.
But let's let's park that.
Paul (17:14):
Yeah.
Vijay K Luthra (17:15):
Yeah the concept of policing and policing by
consent as we have in the UK isit, I would say it's a pretty
fundamental part of of being acivilized country.
I might also argue that I inmany respects, healthcare is
best provided by the government,or at least some healthcare is
best provided by the government.
We have the NHS in the UK, it'svery much considered the jewel
(17:36):
in the crown of our publicservices.
I might also argue thateducation, or at least most
education is best off providedby the state.
Again, in the UK, we have alargely state run education
system.
It's same in Canada.
In Finland, they have a whollystate run education system.
Finland, in fact, gets very goodeducational outcomes.
So I would say, that there thereis definitively a role for
(17:59):
government But I would, point tothe role of civil servants,
public servants has becomeharder and harder, I think over
the last 30, 40, 50, 50 years.
And I'm not just talking aboutin the UK, I'm talking about
globally.
If we think about the landscapeand, in fact, I say this as
(18:20):
someone who used to be a civilservant in the UK.
So I've lived some of this, andwhen I first became a civil
servant, we had very significantresources at our disposal.
The funds were there to deliverbig programs.
I first became civil servantjust before Tony Blair left And
still, felt like a very upbeattime, even though, we'd had the
(18:41):
involvement in the Iraq war andall that brought with it.
But still, overall we had asense of positivity.
But since then, I think thingshave got harder and harder.
As we've discussed theenvironment has become more
volatile, uncertain, complex,and ambiguous, vuca, to steal
the west point term.
And that has manifested itselfin fewer resources, unstable
(19:02):
political leadership.
And for civil servants, unstablepolitical leadership is one of
the worst things because, it maybe you are ordered to go in one
direction today and then inanother direction to tomorrow.
We've seen a lot of that in theUK.
We have Prime Minister afterPrime Minister, it seemed and
although all from the sameparty, many of them might have
logically very very different.
(19:23):
We even had one Prime Ministerwho didn't last as long as a, as
a decomposing lettuce.
It's a time of extremeinstability.
And I think, that narrative thatgovernment, bad private sector,
good, or in this case oligarchygood.
If we look at the example of theUS, it's dangerous, but it's
(19:44):
simple.
And going back to your pointabout, our humanity's ability to
engage with things that arecognitively complex and to
leverage our cognitiveabilities.
Simple ideas, simple answers arevery alluring.
We like simple answers,particularly when there's a
complex problems, because itmeans we don't have to think so
(20:05):
hard.
So when you have someone likeDonald Trump come along and say,
join the swamp, that's, a veryseductive idea for a lot of
people.
Paul (20:14):
There is a really interesting thing happening
right now to just build onexactly what you've just said,
which is we have thisinteresting moment where, you
know, you and I sit in thismoment where we've both been
within the public service.
We both provide services to thepublic service today, and so
we're in inside outside a littlebit.
So we A, we have some freedom totalk, in that none of our, none
(20:36):
of the people we report up toare elected, so maybe there's a
little more freedom just todialogue about this.
But we have a moment where youand I both come from a position
of there are, the, there's thisdigital future, there's the
potential; and I don't wanna usethe word efficient'cause that
tends to mean smaller and lessgovernment which may be an
outcome or may not be anoutcome, that it's, what,are the
(20:57):
services we wish to provide topeople?
What is the cost of thoseservices?
That's really what theconversation should be versus
anyone who works for governmentmust be lazy or overpaid or,
avoiding a real job.
There, there's definitely anattitude because we've all seen
waste exist in in organizations.
But we have this idea of moreeffective government could
(21:18):
potentially happen if we manageto digitize the right things in
the right way, if we make theright choices, if we follow the
right path for how to buildgood, effective software, how to
follow the practices of userexperience and accessibility and
security and privacy, and all ofthese important practices, on
the other side.
Now, at this moment in time, wehave two things that are
(21:39):
happening.
One in the US, which is a reallyinteresting case study for a lot
of what we're talking about.
And unfortunately, it's also areality for a lot of human
beings.
People are gonna be harmed bysome of what's happening right
now, but have this interestingmoment where the tools that
potentially you and I wouldadvocate are being, really taken
at scale.
And we now have, the US' largesttechnologist, the most wealthy
(22:04):
technologist most ardentadvocate for technology as a
transformational force insociety and for our species is
now taking that lens to the USGovernment.
In a way that, that it's reallyhard to understand what might be
on the other side of this, youtake this massive institution of
the US government, that moves somuch water every day, carries so
(22:24):
much weight, delivers so manyservices, and we're really
putting a hand grenade into it,and saying, we're just gonna
blow this thing up, that we'regonna see what's left on the
other side, appears to be themindset that's being taken.
Which is a very tech mindset,Uber did that to taxis, and to
food delivery and Airbnb didthat to the hotel industry.
(22:44):
But these are the metaphors weuse to laud tech, to to praise
tech for the potential outcomesto take legacy industries.
And now as we're bringing thatto government, is government
something we wish to disrupt inthis kind of way or to this kind
of degree, what could theoutcomes be because government
is different from a commercialentity.
(23:06):
We don't follow the same rules.
Government should move moreslowly.
It, we should be more cautious.
It's the commons, it doesn'tbelong to an entrepreneur, it
belongs to all.
In theory, in a democracy, itshould belong to the people and
it serve the people.
So you have this interestingmoment where all the things that
were my tools, as a entrepreneurand an advocate for good
(23:31):
government and, digitization arebeing brought in a way that, and
a scale and a velocity.
And I'm curious, how you seethis in the UK.
And I also want to, there's alsobeen a narrative emerging of
maybe the UK spent too muchmoney on digital transformation.
Maybe this hasn't worked out.
I've seen this narrative startto emerge in media as well, and
(23:51):
again, suspicious of that.
So there's sort of two questionsbuilding here, and I'd love to
hear both, both as atechnologist supporting and
working alongside government andadvocating for government, and
advocating for technology withingovernment, how do you perceive
the US.
And then also, as a UK citizen,hearing a new critique of maybe
we have too many digital peopleworking in the UK government
(24:12):
right now.
Maybe there's too much.
Are we getting the value we werepromised?
There's sort of two sides ofthis and sort to throw two
questions at the same time, butI love to hear your thoughts on
both of those, because I thinkthey start to converge in an
interesting place.
Vijay K Luthra (24:24):
Yeah.
And look, my my starting pointfor all of this is my, my, my
view is we need a new paradigmfor why we do digital
transformation in government.
I would also say, more more orless transformation is now more
or less all digital these days.
(24:46):
We also in in UK circles when wetalk about reform, by which we
generally mean the same thing,we mean transformation.
We also have a political partycalled reform, but let's not
talk about them.
And certainly, you alluded tothe the world's richest man is
now ripping apart the UK, the USgovernment.
And we've had.
similar similar posturing in theUK.
(25:09):
Musk is not posturing.
He's actually ripping apart theUS government.
Thankfully we haven't had thathappen here.
Although we've had people offerto do that.
My view of those kind of offersis if you look at the way that
Musk is operating, it's really,it's a nihilistic approach to
(25:29):
the state.
As in, I dislike the state,think partly because they don't
understand the state.
Slightly controversialperspective from me, but, as
someone who has grown up, I'm akidney transplanter, grew up
with a a chronic kidneycondition.
So I'm only here because of theefforts of the NHS.
I spent a very short part of mylife on welfare.
(25:53):
I'm state educated in the UK, soI have had huge benefit from
public services.
I value them hugely.
I'm a critical friend that, Ilike to think that I can see
where the issues are, but I'm byand large an advocate for public
services.
I look at people like Musk and Isee people who have never had to
(26:14):
make use of those services.
They don't understand them.
They don't value them, and theydon't see the contribution those
services make to civilization togo back to the Oliver Wendell
Homes quotes, And I, my sense ofthe, the sort of the Musk or the
(26:36):
equivalent in the UK might be bethe gentleman called Tom
Blomfield, who.
Is one of founders of MonzoBank.
And relatively recently put acontentious statement out on
Twitter[now known as X].
I feel like with a small team intwo to three years, proven tech
founders could automate hugechunks of the government.
(26:56):
I would sign up for a tour ofduty in the UK.
It would need a lot of politicalair cover.
I have no desire to fightmassive bureaucracy.
I think that view is naive andit's wrongheaded.
It's pretty much the same viewthat Musk seems to be taking,
but my sense is it's driven froma place of small state, good
lower taxes, good private sectorbest.
(27:17):
And in my view, none of thesethings are true.
In a in a balanced world, youneed both government and the
private sector to work hand inhand to create stable societies.
It's not a zero sum game.
But as I say, if you've neverhad to make use of those
services, then you probablyresent that you pay lots of
taxes, which go towards fundingthose services.
(27:39):
But I would say that we need adifferent paradigm and my view
on all of this is that, we are,we're in a new era, a new era
that is different to any that'scome before.
Some people try and compare itto say the industrial
Revolution, but I think it'seven more it's even more,
revolutionary and fundamentalthan that I've taken to calling
(28:01):
it the fifth industrialrevolution.
I know some people already referto a fourth industrial
revolution.
I I've chosen fifth industrialrevolution because there's a
distinction between the sort ofthe fourth industrial
revolution, which is theemergence of big tech.
The fifth industrial revolutionis not just about the emergence
of AI, but it's also about thechange in the human condition
(28:24):
that we see.
Alongside that.
Going back to your point aboutjudgment and critical thinking,
in a world that is powered by AIthe thing that is left for
humanity is judgment andcritical thinking.
And so the way I advocate forapproaching government and
public service reform is it'sany paradigm that's based around
we're gonna save X amount ofmoney or drive X amount of
(28:46):
efficiency is going to put youon a course where you are bound
to fail because it's gonna beabout numbers.
It's gonna be about the lowestcommon denominator and
invariably, I think, you arealways gonna over promise and
under deliver.
My renewed paradigm.
(29:07):
What I would encourage listenersto think about is what's the
human benefit That we are goingto get from implementing this
technology.
We need a, what I would call ahuman centered future.
So where we are digitizingservices, how does that make
life better for people?
(29:28):
CEVA, my company, we do a lot ofwork in health.
One of the things I'm always atpains to stress is.
Where is the benefit for thepeople who are in health
systems?
And that is not just cliniciansit's also the administrators who
work with clinicians.
It's very definitely thepatients, but it's also the
carers who have to look afterthe patients.
(29:48):
So if we are doing things thatbenefit of those groups of
people, then why are we doingit?
And I think that's thefundamental shift that we need
when we think about digitaltransformation in government.
What's the human what is thehuman outcome that we want?
And the answer to that shouldbe, it should be better
(30:09):
services, but better servicesthat deliver to outcomes.
Delivering to outcomes, what doI mean by that?
Let's take education.
What, do we want from education?
We want happy, well-roundedcitizens who are able to go out
into the workforce and prosper.
That is the purpose ofeducation.
If we're gonna start digitizingelements of how education is
(30:33):
delivered, then does itcontribute towards that end
goal?
No, if it doesn't, then take agood look at whether it's worth
doing or not healthcare, localgovernment.
You can always make a case fortransaction processing to be
more efficient, to be muchquicker.
But let's be frank in largeparts of the world, some of
(30:56):
those transactional processesthat are currently done by
hundreds, perhaps thousands ofpeople are providing employment
opportunities to communitiesthat would otherwise be
decimated.
So you are gonna say, let'sdigitize all of that, all of
that, tra that transactionprocessing over there, what
(31:18):
happens to all of those jobs?
Again, it comes back to what'sthe what's the human outcome?
Paul (31:22):
I love this piece and I want to pull back around to one
piece.
There's a tiny anecdote that I,that is, that sprung into my
mind as you were talking, whichwas at one point in my career
at, when I was the CEO of acompany and had a leadership
team.
We were having interestingconversation about a person on
our team, not within ourleadership team, but who was key
employee in our company, who wasquite clearly having a mental
(31:45):
health moment, just a momentwhere they were not at their
best.
There was probably somethinghappening outside of work that
was impacting the performance atwork.
And where we were having aconversation on what should we
do here to support this person?
Because they are key to ourbusiness and to our success as a
business.
And we are discussing, mentalhealth outcomes and one of the
people on my leadership teamsaid we can't be having this
(32:06):
conversation.
This is not our problem.
We are a business and they threwout the, we are a business,
trump card.
I said, I don't think thatphrase of, the Milton Friedman
view of we are, profit is theonly purpose for business.
I said I don't, I just don'tthink it's a get out of jail
free card for still being a partof society.
Vijay K Luthra (32:27):
Not t'all.
Paul (32:27):
Being a business doesn't excuse you from still being a
human being, employing humans,being a function within society.
And I do think whether we're inthe public service side, I don't
think government gets to have aget out of jail card from
efficiency and effectivenesseither, like, on both sides, I
think it cuts both ways, butjust this idea that business is
somehow immune from themessiness of humanity.
(32:50):
I don't think that is, I don'tthink that's an acceptable
posture to take, but the factthat government doesn't also
have to perform and delivervalue, also, but at the bottom
line, we want multiple thingsfrom government.
We would like good policy.
We would like enforcement wherethose policies are contravened,
where the law is contrave, Wewant policy, but then the other
(33:10):
major arm of government in mostdemocracies in the world is
service delivery.
They are a service delivery arm.
They take on the services likein Canada in the UK, healthcare,
education.
Those aren't universallyconsidered government services,
but I think, you and I grew upin a world where we can't even
imagine a world in which.
The basics of healthcare, thebasics are provided to all
(33:33):
people, regardless of do youcome to, do you arrive here on a
boat, in a state of desperation,did you walk across a border.
We wanna eliminate suffering forthe other members of our
species.
So we ask government to do thosethings that don't really fit
into a business model.
A business would never takethose things on.
Those are not profitablebusinesses.
Those are not effectivebusinesses.
(33:53):
Those are not scalablebusinesses.
That's not really the space thatbusiness wants to live in.
So we ask government to do thosethings for us.
And we all contribute out of ourincome, to, to that pot that,
that we.
Then hand back to government.
So with that mindset, here weare where that, these concepts
are under attack, we're, and yetwe still need to operate.
(34:13):
So you and I sit as advisors togovernment today, for the most
part.
So I'd love to hear, what areyou saying, given this
impossible moment, we're inwhere we've stopped trusting
institutions.
We, we, know, government isunder attack.
Truth itself is.
personal, rather than normalizedin society, and an objective,
and yet, we still would likegovernment to exist.
(34:36):
I think most people would notwant government to disappear.
They might say it, they mighteven vote for it, but if you sit
and think about the implicationsof the roads crumble the
military evaporates, our bordersactually become fully porous.
We don't want these things to goaway.
We want better than they are,for the most part.
How do you advise yourcustomers?
What are the mindsets for thosewithin government who are
(34:57):
dealing with this moment wherethey are distrusted; they're
under attack; the rules arechanging; the sands are
shifting; how do you operatetoday?
I know that's a challengingquestion just to throw, but I
think that's what we're tryingto get to here.
Vijay K Luthra (35:09):
Yeah, it's a really difficult one.
I try and encourage everybody toadopt a positive mindset, which
is difficult.
Because if you're constantlyunder attack, then, It can be
incredibly, it's winding, to beconstantly under attack by the
person, and by politicalleaders.
I do think there is an inherentvirtue in public service.
I think for example Dan Honigprofessor, University College
(35:32):
London in the UK and atGeorgetown in the US, Dan's
book, Mission DrivenBureaucrats.
At the center of that is thatmost people get into public
service out of an intrinsicsense of duty and commitment.
And I think that's true.
That is largely why I became acivil servant is also largely
(35:54):
why I still work in publicservices.
I have more agency now that I'mnot.
inside public services, but, Istill have a passion and an
interest in seeing our statebecome strong, agile, resilient
in the way it needs to be to, toweather the, the challenges that
we've discussed.
And those are the kind of thingsthat, that I try and encourage
(36:16):
in, clients is, to try and stayupbeat, which is easier said
than done.
Again, pretty much everybody Italk to is in their role because
they fundamentally believe thatpublic services are an important
part of creating successfulnation states.
And so I ask people to, to keepthat front and center.
And then I think also, I alwaystry and encourage people to
(36:39):
think more, more broadly.
We've dwelt a great deal on, howchanged the world is.
I think it's important to alwayslocate yourself in that context
and to think very carefullyabout what do we need from
public services in this renewedworld.
It is still, it is clear thatthere are still a great many
(37:00):
people who do need publicservices.
And again, I think that's quitea powerful idea that, as a civil
servant or a public servant, youare at the center of creating a
future that is vitally importantto the nation that you serve and
vitally important to thousands,millions of individuals within
(37:22):
that nation.
And so I think, that sort ofmindset is quite important.
As I say, it's, difficult tostay positive all the time.
But I also encourage people,going back to this idea of human
centeredness, is to considertechnology as an enabler,
because it is an enabler.
It is not about technologyversus human.
(37:44):
It's about human and technology,but the human always has to come
first.
So where we are putting in placea piece of software or, perhaps
we're AI as is the flavor of themoment everywhere, including in,
in government and publicservices.
But how are we meaningfullymaking use?
(38:05):
Of, of AI, where we aredeploying it, how are we
preparing our workforce to beable to exploit these new tools
that we put at their disposal.
I'm conscious I didn't answeryour question about, the success
of digital transformationinitiatives in the UK and I
think this goes back to themindsets piece in that, in the
(38:27):
past we, we've often approachedthe big initiatives.
There's a really famous examplein the UK NPfIT, The National
Program for IT, which was a, anattempt to digitize the NHS at
national level, which whicheventually ended.
The contract was terminated.
It was, a huge piece of workover, billions, not millions of
(38:51):
pounds and it, it failed.
There were some, there were oneor two legacy elements, which
are still in use, by and largethe project failed.
I would say it goes back to theparadigm that the, that program
was about efficiency, it wasdriven from a place of let's
save money, it wasn't drivenfrom a place of let's improve
(39:13):
outcomes.
Let's, use this program to drivebetter patient outcomes, to help
clinicians do a better job.
It wasn't driven from thatplace.
It was driven from a place of,we're gonna spend, 2 billion
pounds to save 10 billionpounds.
I'd maintain that taking thatapproach is generally going to
lead to failure.
Paul (39:36):
I love this for two reasons.
There's a crisis moment we're atfor those of us who sit in and
surrounding public service, butalso in and surrounding
technology.
Which is, technology will nevertell us why, it will only tell
us how it's just, it's tools.
It's software.
It's how something happens.
(39:58):
yet also as a Canadian, I gottaquote Marshall McLuhan, the
medium being the message.
It also contains with it a setof values, technology brings
values along with it.
Even though it is not itselfgenerative of those values, the
people who create technology,where.
here in Canada, in the UK, inthe US to pick the three
companies that you and I can seemost clearly.
(40:20):
From where we sit we have atechnologist questioning the
validity of public serviceitself.
We have a moment in the UK wherethere's a bit of a reckoning.
We have a moment in Canada wherethe nation is under threat,
there is this crisis occurring.
And I think this is a momentwhere we all need to sit back
and say, what do we wish to haveon the other side of this?
(40:42):
What are the things that wechoose to value still?
What are those core values thatwe have of, yeah, we want a
social safety net.
There is a floor below which wedon't want our neighbors to
sink.
Those who live in our communityand around us, there's some
minimum standards that we wishto have exist.
I would like a road that ispaved to come by my house.
Should I need to call a policeofficer if I'm in danger, I
(41:05):
would like them to have a pavedroad to drive on to get to my
house in a city.
I would like that police serviceto exist and to be effective.
I would like a hospital to beopen and willing to see my child
should my child become ill inthe middle of the night.
These are things I wish to haveexist.
And I still deeply believe intechnology.
I also don't want this moment inthe US to destroy our faith in
technology as an enabler of goodgovernment as well.
(41:27):
I think that's another dangerthat we're facing here of, the
tech bros may put us off ourwillingness to even engage.
As much as I probably to somedegree am a tech bro, in that
I'm male, I'm in tech.
There's this moment, where Ijust hope you don't lose the
possibilities.
I talked to somebody who was onObama's digital team at one
point, and I said what's the USstrategy?
(41:48):
He said We just look at the UKand see what works and what
doesn't, and copy the goodstuff.
That's what we're doing.
And it was like, a lot of uswatched the UK for a long time
as an early mover in digitalgovernment as a leader.
And in, I'm in tech, noteverything goes well.
Not everything produces theoutcome we promised at the
beginning, but I don't thinkthat means that it's not worth
trying.
So I am still hopeful.
(42:08):
I I still believe that there,there's possibility here.
What so I guess to a closingquestion, Vijay, we've talked
about some existential issueshere.
We've talked about some, someArmageddon, like outcomes,
potentially here, glanced aroundthese things, authoritarianism,
the populism, the end of allgovernment, who knows the end of
society, like, glance aroundthese, what has you hopeful
right now?
(42:29):
What are you hopeful for in, inthe next year?
Vijay K Luthra (42:35):
Uh, that, that is a really, really good
question.
I and I'm tempted to say I'mtempted to say there's nothing
to hope for but I, obviously, Idon't believe that.
Otherwise I wouldn't be here.
I I think we're in an inflectionpoint.
The world is very often atinflection points, bigger or
smaller but I think we're, onthe edge of a big inflection
(42:57):
point around technology if welook at the rate of progression
of AI, for example it's clearthat AI is going to become a
foundational technology forhumanity going forward.
And my, my hope is that we havesome very powerful tools at our
(43:19):
disposal that will help us solvesome existential problems.
Will it help us solve climatechange?
Maybe.
A, a great example is, greatBritish technologists Demis
Hassabis recently awarded aNobel Prize for protein analysis
using AI.
Dennis is obviously it's,founder and CEO of DeepMind, now
(43:42):
Google DeepMind.
Without the power of DeepMind,it would've taken us a great
deal longer to have, broken thischallenge around protein folding
and the scientific applications,particularly in, disease are
very significant.
My sense is that as technologyaccelerates our ability to solve
(44:03):
problems, Should alsoaccelerate.
And I think as long as we cankeep that technology in the
right hands, that being theoperative challenge, I see a
potentially a very bright futurefor humanity.
In partnership with thesetechnologies.
It goes back to the point wewere just discussing technology
is the how it's an enabler, itis not the end.
(44:25):
It is the means.
But I think as long as we keepthat up front of mind, then, you
know we potentially have a verybright future ahead of us as a
species.
On the flip side, it could allgo probably wrong and, we could
end up destroying civilizationin, in the next 24 months but
who knows really.
Paul (44:47):
I am deeply aware that we've talked about current
events in this show and in apodcast that won't be coming out
later today or tomorrow, buthopefully later this month and
we'll see what continues to betrue that we have discussed by
the time that anyone listens tothis particular conversation.
Vijayay, thank you for yourtime.
This was a bit of a ramble.
As we said, we would probablyhave when we started this.
(45:08):
We're gonna ramble along throughthis thing.
We'll see where we get.
But I think we touched on someessential questions that I hope
on any side of the politicalspectrum, people are asking
themselves of what do weactually wish to have for humans
on the other side of all ofthese moments that we're in and
what role can technology play inthe betterment of the
government, which must continueto exist in some format.
(45:30):
We will have government.
We will have organization.
We will have society is just isit a society that benefits the
most humans or the fewesthumans.
I think it's probably a goodlens to bring to it.
Really grateful for your tide[time] today here, sir.
Thank you for the conversation.
Vijay K Luthra (45:45):
Thank you so much, Paul.
I've enjoyed it immensely.
Paul (45:53):
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Vijay and I are going to stay intouch and look for more points
of collaboration between the UKand Canada.
Some of the themes in ourconversation that I've found
interesting included that thechange in our media ecosystem
and our information diet meanthat many of us have very
different information andnarratives about government.
(46:14):
Big tech brings with it a beliefsystem that isn't always
congruent with the mindset ofgovernment.
Human centric design and policyare essential to be sure that we
get the best outcomes fromdisruptive technology like AI.
And we're cautiously optimisticfor the future.
It's important for government tofind a healthy relationship with
(46:34):
technology.
That's what digitaltransformation is all about.
I hope you enjoyed myconversation with Vijay Luthra.
Please do subscribe and followthe many conversations we're
going to be releasing throughoutthe year.
I'd like to thank my colleagueswho worked with me on this
podcast.
Kathy Watton is our showproducer and editor.
Frederick Brummer and AhmedKhalil created our theme music
(46:57):
and intro.
I'm going to keep havingconversations like this.
Thanks for tuning in.
If you've got ideas for theguests we should speak to, send
us an email to the311@northern.
co.
The public service is about allof us, and when it's done right,
digital can be a key ingredientfor a better world.
(47:17):
This has been the 311 Podcast,and I'm your host, Paul Bellows.
This is the 311 Podcast.
I'm your host, Paul Bellows.
This is a show about the peoplethat make digital government
work for the public service.
If you'd like to find out more,visit Northern.
co.
Today, my guest is Vijay Luthra.
Vijay is the managing partner ofCEVA Global in the UK, and he
(00:52):
works to help governmentorganizations in the UK and UAE
to develop digitaltransformation strategies.
Vijay is, in his words, a formerpublic servant and a recovering
politician.
He works in social enterpriseand has deep expertise in
healthcare and transformation.
When I met Vijay first, I knewwe'd have a good conversation.
(01:13):
Today we decided to talk aboutwhat digital transformation for
government means in the chaosthat is early 2025.
We spoke in February of 2025 andtalked about the headwinds
facing government at this momentin time.
Given the pace of change,particularly in the US, it's
hard to say how long ourconversation will remain
relevant.
(01:34):
It's hard to talk about thepolitical side of government
without taking sides, but we didour best to avoid that.
We talked about institutionaltrust and what it means when the
entrepreneurial forces of bigtech come for the scale and pace
of government.
Vijay and I both believe thatpublicly funded and operated
services are essential for ajust society.
(01:55):
And I hope that wherever youfall on the political spectrum,
that that's something we canagree on.
Here's my conversation withVijay Luthra.
Vijay K Luthra (02:10):
Hi Paul.
I'm Vijay, Vijay Kay Luther.
I am the managing partner atCEVA.
We are a boutique consultancyand we work with government and
public services on, principally,on delivery and implementation
challenges.
So we are particularly focusedon transformation;
transformation that perhaps hasgot a little stuck.
(02:31):
But because we do a lot of workwhere transformation has got
stuck we also do a lot of workwith people who know, who want
to know, how to set uptransformation to succeed from
the outset.
Paul (02:42):
So Vijay, we were gonna talk with today is why is
digital government hard in 2025?
And what are the strategies forfinding success in 2025 in our
current let's call it political,social and media conditions,
which is all of these things.
As we go in, I don't wanna divetoo deep into the conspiracy
theory of what folks in certainparts of certain political camps
(03:05):
are doing.
But it does, seem like in theU.S Election and where money is
getting spent, and what kinds ofmessages are getting socialized,
and the funny little lens that Ithink is interesting is, as a
Canadian, I've been watchingRyan Reynolds and Blake Lively
and their media spat they'rehaving around this film that
they did.
Where both groups appear to bebuying media and positioning
(03:27):
stories and statements, andthey're actually hiring firms to
do reputation management.
There's a bit of an undercurrentof is the story we hear a
reliable story.
There's sort of the media angle,do we need a little bit more
critical listening ability, youknow, critical skills to to look
at stories we're seeing online.
What is true, what is not, howdo you find truth?
I think it doesn't hurt toremind people that Media
(03:50):
literacy is more important nowthan maybe it's ever been, in
terms of how stories get to usand what we need to pay
attention to and where realityis in terms of digital
government.
Vijay K Luthra (03:58):
Yeah, very much and I think disinformation is
becoming more and more of anissue.
So my mom is 75, right?
And she's of that generationwhere she's not what you would
call a digital native.
So she uses Facebook.
She she texts, she WhatsApps allof those different things.
(04:19):
But I would say she, she's notnecessarily digitally savvy in
the way lots of people in hergeneration are not and the
ability of people to be able tosift, not necessarily truth from
fiction because it's morefundamental than that, but
opinion from facts.
And and this is, I think one ofthe things that's interesting
(04:43):
about the way in which opinionand facts have become blended
is.
as things which 10 or 20 yearsago, we would not have
considered contestable, I'llgive you an example, Vaccines
for example,
Paul (05:01):
For example.
Yeah.
Vijay K Luthra (05:02):
yeah things like that principles, which we would
concepts, which we would nothave considered contestable in
any serious way.
Are becoming contestable.
And one of the reasons they'vebecome contestable is because of
the way social media hasreshaped narrative and social
(05:23):
media has put pressure onmainstream media to reshape
narrative.
So what we've had is thisconvergence of, not facts versus
opinion, but this blending offacts and opinions or just
opinions presented as facts.
And if you look at the logicalprogression of where, that goes.
(05:43):
Well, I mean, look, we're seeingit.
We've now got a a vaccineefficacy denier as Secretary of
Health and Human Services in theUS government.
Where does that take us?
Some people say we're in apost-truth world, I tend to
think that term is a littletrite but I understand the, you
know, what they're trying to getat, which is that the absolute
(06:04):
objective truth is no longerenough because everything is
contestable.
Paul (06:11):
Yes to everything you said.
And, the dichotomy appears tobe, something that just comes
down to, our, I think ourevolution as a species and the
fact that we've been launchedinto a global era without the
cognitive skills to cope with aglobal era.
In the seventies, the 1900 andseventies, when I was a child,
we had local news.
That's primarily what youconsumed.
(06:32):
And they would talk about thecity zoo and city hall and the
bus strike or the garbagecollection.
There were issues that werelocal and then towards the end
of that broadcast, we'd havesome national news and then a
little bit of internationalnews.
And that was storytelling.
That was news.
That was the media.
It was very local.
It was very cognitivelyaccessible.
(06:52):
I could understand it.
It was related to me.
Today, news is all existential,global, and so removed from my
day-to-day reality, I'm not evensure what's happening in my city
anymore, unless I find anindependent news source or, a
blogger.
I think part of that has led usto a point where we do not trust
(07:12):
institutions anymore.
The institutional information,institutional news,
institutional press releases,information coming from
governments becomesintrinsically less trustworthy
than the thing I can cognitivelyunderstand, which is people I
know, people I have a trustrelationship with, people I've
met, or people I've connectedwith online.
Or at least, people I perceivethat I've connected with online.
(07:34):
And so our news has become asocial, our truth has become
social.
Vijay K Luthra (07:39):
Yes.
Paul (07:39):
Ironically, I didn't mean to put those two words together
given the US president'spersonal social media platform,
but, there's an irony there thatthe truth is social today
Versus, factual, institutional,authoritative, we've lost all of
those things.
So, we're ungrounded in terms ofour truth and reality in this
moment in a way that I don'tthink as a society and as a
(08:00):
species we've really beenprepared for in the past.
Vijay K Luthra (08:03):
No.
I guess the other thing I wouldadd to that is that the pace of
news and media has changedradically.
So when I was growing up, we- soI'm in the UK, right?
I'm in Surrey in the UK not theSurrey in British Columbia.
But both very fine places.
In the UK, when I was growingup, we used to have, you'd have
news bulletins at fixed times.
(08:25):
There'd be a news at 6:00 PM inthe evening.
There'd be a news at 9:00 PM inthe evening.
Be a news at night at 10:00 PMin the evening.
And I remember, the 10:00 PMnews bulletin was pretty much
the last thing my dad used towatch before he went to bed.
But now, we have news on tap 24hours a day.
But alongside that, going backto, what's contestable, a lot of
(08:46):
that news now comes, more so inthe US but increasingly in the
UK and Europe, comes with anideological bias attached to it.
It's a model that's beenpioneered by Fox News.
We've now also got GB News inthe UK.
It's quite troubling becauseagain, it's contributing to this
idea that Everything iscontestable but as you allude to
(09:10):
the, where, how we consumeinformation and where we consume
information from has changedquite radically.
So that trust piece that youmentioned you're absolutely
right.
Trust has been eroded ingovernments, in Public
institutions, but I would alsosay in the media.
If you look at, and I don't havethe figures to hand, but if you
(09:32):
look at the BBC and itsreputation, look, let's look at
this in the round.
The BBC news, in particular,still pushes out pretty high
quality, objective news content.
Has it changed?
Yes.
But is it still, trusted bymany, many people?
Yes.
Is it as trusted by many people,as many people as it was 20
(09:54):
years ago?
No.
Even a news source, you know,CNN for example, equally high
quality news output.
So even those sources of news,which have always had a high
degree of fidelity and trustattached to them.
They're the level of trust andfidelity is being eroded.
(10:16):
If I look at some of the reasonswhy it's being eroded we see a
great deal of polarization insociety.
Where I think we are seeing lessof that and I'm contemplating
this point from a place where Ican't really go and check
whether my hypothesis is true.
We live in, in a democraticworld, but there are parts of
the world that are notdemocratic.
(10:39):
So my.limited understanding of,what the information and news
landscape in Russia is, forexample, is that it is not as
diverse and contested as it isin, say, the UK and Canada
because essentially, everythingis controlled by the government.
(10:59):
And there are other places whereyou could, you know Iran, might
be another example.
Those are not democratic nationstates.
And therefore the informationlandscape is not contested in
the same way as it is in thedemocratic world.
Now I'm not for a second,suggesting that we should move
away from democracy.
But I definitely think thatthere is a challenge for
(11:21):
democratic governments, theworld over as to how you protect
that democracy.
Europe, and other places in theworld are slipping towards
populism, Italy, France the US,but populism is on the rise.
So it, it's only a short stepfrom populism.
Vladimir Putin is a populist,right?
(11:43):
Let's make no bones about it.
Potentially it's a very shortstep, for, say, France or Italy,
to go from where they are now toa, sort of, trumpesque situation
where you have a populistelected to office who, seeks to
then radically remake, the sortof the government and public
(12:05):
services landscape.
And we've already seen thatTrump is moving at pace to do
that.
Paul (12:09):
I think you can say, it's hard to speak about what happens
in a society, but you cancertainly say people who
disagree with Putin tend to havea disproportionate amount of
tumbles out of hotel windows.
Vijay K Luthra (12:20):
Yes.
Paul (12:21):
You only need more than one of those instances would
indicate there's some sort of apattern there of maybe things
are not above board in Russia.
I think that's safe to say.
We've got a living case study inCanada though right now where I
sit, in Edmonton, Alberta and weare under attack by the US It is
a trade war that is remarkablylike an actual war in that our
(12:41):
sovereignty is being threatened.
But I will say the creation ofan enemy has changed the
political dynamic, regardless ofwhat size of the political
spectrum you're on.
Polling has swung by 20 pointsin Canada in a matter of weeks.
And I can't think of a time inmy living memory where I saw
that type of a swing inpolitical opinion in this
(13:03):
particular nation, quite thisquickly.
And, towards towards one partythat was really plummeting in
the polls.
There's been a pivot.
So we're looking into newleadership, et cetera.
And I don't mean to say that tomake any political point about
Canada, but to identify thecreation of an enemy is an
interesting strategy.
And I think this is one where anenemy has created itself for
Canada, or at least an opponent,and, one off the things that's
(13:24):
true about populism thegenerative act of creating
opponents, be that a politicalside, a economic posture,
whatever that thing is; thepersonality of a particular
leader, the age of a leader, allof these things can be
weaponized to create opponents,and people respond remarkably
(13:45):
well to an opponent.
Once you have opposition, nowyou've created community.
Now you've created solidarity.
Now you've created alignment andthat it is one of the tools.
It's a legitimate tools.
I don't mean to say that thepresence of an opponent, should
intrinsically be suspicious, butdefinitely the pattern of
populism is to identifyopponents, be that opponent, the
(14:08):
country of UKraine or, what,whatever that might be.
Once create these opponents,suddenly we can rally people, we
can get alignment, we can getbuy-in.
And so the creation of opponentsshould, we should be skeptical,
at the very least, of that.
But what's interesting, in theUS context in particular right
(14:29):
now, is the government itselfhas been made the opponent, the
institution, the concept of, oh,there's a deep state and that
deep state is against yourinterests and also against my
interest as a leader.
I'm, putting words in the mouthof particular US leadership
right now but that is theplaybook that's being followed
right now.
(14:51):
And would we stop being able totrust what government says.
These are the people we've hiredand elected and commissioned to
take our tax dollars and buildour roads and teach our children
and operate our healthcare andrun our military.
And if we intrinsically can'ttrust them, how do we get
anything done?
We're, this point of it'simpossible now to accomplish
anything.
Vijay K Luthra (15:11):
Yeah.
This is the logical endpoint ofa narrative that has been around
for, 50 or 60 years.
In the UK we saw it inThatcherism, where you have a
drive for for a small statebecause the ideological platform
is that a small state is moreefficient, that government
(15:32):
should not spend money,government should not interfere
where the private sector cantake a role et cetera, et
cetera.
Margaret Thatcher famouslytalked about rolling back the
frontiers of the state.
And we've seen really a sort ofworldwide trend, you know what
some people might call neoneoliberalism, and it is that to
(15:53):
an extent,.
In government itself, you've hadthis culture of of
Managerialism, which reallyemerged properly in the eighties
again, in the UK, New Zealand,and in Australia where you know
that you have this philosophicalapproach to government where
it's efficiency driven.
it's about metrics.
It's the idea that you canmanage you can manage to
(16:17):
targets.
And I, think some of what we'reseeing at the moment is it's
almost the the ideologicalendpoint of that, which is that
government is actually theenemy.
It stands in our way, stops usfrom getting stuff done which of
course is not the purpose ofgovernment.
I'm reminded, there's an OliverWendell Holmes quote I like
(16:38):
paying taxes.
It buys me civilization.
And of course, what he wastalking about was the order that
governments bring and servicesand, the sort of the, there's
some very basic things that,that I believe should be the
role of government policing andnational security for example.
(16:59):
Would I want our police forcesto be privatized?
Well, no, because then in whoseinterests do they do they
operate?
Do no doubt some of yourlisteners would point to the
fact that the police are alreadynot operating in the interest of
citizens in many places.
But let's let's park that.
Paul (17:14):
Yeah.
Vijay K Luthra (17:15):
Yeah the concept of policing and policing by
consent as we have in the UK isit, I would say it's a pretty
fundamental part of of being acivilized country.
I might also argue that I inmany respects, healthcare is
best provided by the government,or at least some healthcare is
best provided by the government.
We have the NHS in the UK, it'svery much considered the jewel
(17:36):
in the crown of our publicservices.
I might also argue thateducation, or at least most
education is best off providedby the state.
Again, in the UK, we have alargely state run education
system.
It's same in Canada.
In Finland, they have a whollystate run education system.
Finland, in fact, gets very goodeducational outcomes.
So I would say, that there thereis definitively a role for
(17:59):
government But I would, point tothe role of civil servants,
public servants has becomeharder and harder, I think over
the last 30, 40, 50, 50 years.
And I'm not just talking aboutin the UK, I'm talking about
globally.
If we think about the landscapeand, in fact, I say this as
(18:20):
someone who used to be a civilservant in the UK.
So I've lived some of this, andwhen I first became a civil
servant, we had very significantresources at our disposal.
The funds were there to deliverbig programs.
I first became civil servantjust before Tony Blair left And
still, felt like a very upbeattime, even though, we'd had the
(18:41):
involvement in the Iraq war andall that brought with it.
But still, overall we had asense of positivity.
But since then, I think thingshave got harder and harder.
As we've discussed theenvironment has become more
volatile, uncertain, complex,and ambiguous, vuca, to steal
the west point term.
And that has manifested itselfin fewer resources, unstable
(19:02):
political leadership.
And for civil servants, unstablepolitical leadership is one of
the worst things because, it maybe you are ordered to go in one
direction today and then inanother direction to tomorrow.
We've seen a lot of that in theUK.
We have Prime Minister afterPrime Minister, it seemed and
although all from the sameparty, many of them might have
logically very very different.
(19:23):
We even had one Prime Ministerwho didn't last as long as a, as
a decomposing lettuce.
It's a time of extremeinstability.
And I think, that narrative thatgovernment, bad private sector,
good, or in this case oligarchygood.
If we look at the example of theUS, it's dangerous, but it's
(19:44):
simple.
And going back to your pointabout, our humanity's ability to
engage with things that arecognitively complex and to
leverage our cognitiveabilities.
Simple ideas, simple answers arevery alluring.
We like simple answers,particularly when there's a
complex problems, because itmeans we don't have to think so
(20:05):
hard.
So when you have someone likeDonald Trump come along and say,
join the swamp, that's, a veryseductive idea for a lot of
people.
Paul (20:14):
There is a really interesting thing happening
right now to just build onexactly what you've just said,
which is we have thisinteresting moment where, you
know, you and I sit in thismoment where we've both been
within the public service.
We both provide services to thepublic service today, and so
we're in inside outside a littlebit.
So we A, we have some freedom totalk, in that none of our, none
(20:36):
of the people we report up toare elected, so maybe there's a
little more freedom just todialogue about this.
But we have a moment where youand I both come from a position
of there are, the, there's thisdigital future, there's the
potential; and I don't wanna usethe word efficient'cause that
tends to mean smaller and lessgovernment which may be an
outcome or may not be anoutcome, that it's, what,are the
(20:57):
services we wish to provide topeople?
What is the cost of thoseservices?
That's really what theconversation should be versus
anyone who works for governmentmust be lazy or overpaid or,
avoiding a real job.
There, there's definitely anattitude because we've all seen
waste exist in in organizations.
But we have this idea of moreeffective government could
(21:18):
potentially happen if we manageto digitize the right things in
the right way, if we make theright choices, if we follow the
right path for how to buildgood, effective software, how to
follow the practices of userexperience and accessibility and
security and privacy, and all ofthese important practices, on
the other side.
Now, at this moment in time, wehave two things that are
(21:39):
happening.
One in the US, which is a reallyinteresting case study for a lot
of what we're talking about.
And unfortunately, it's also areality for a lot of human
beings.
People are gonna be harmed bysome of what's happening right
now, but have this interestingmoment where the tools that
potentially you and I wouldadvocate are being, really taken
at scale.
And we now have, the US' largesttechnologist, the most wealthy
(22:04):
technologist most ardentadvocate for technology as a
transformational force insociety and for our species is
now taking that lens to the USGovernment.
In a way that, that it's reallyhard to understand what might be
on the other side of this, youtake this massive institution of
the US government, that moves somuch water every day, carries so
(22:24):
much weight, delivers so manyservices, and we're really
putting a hand grenade into it,and saying, we're just gonna
blow this thing up, that we'regonna see what's left on the
other side, appears to be themindset that's being taken.
Which is a very tech mindset,Uber did that to taxis, and to
food delivery and Airbnb didthat to the hotel industry.
(22:44):
But these are the metaphors weuse to laud tech, to to praise
tech for the potential outcomesto take legacy industries.
And now as we're bringing thatto government, is government
something we wish to disrupt inthis kind of way or to this kind
of degree, what could theoutcomes be because government
is different from a commercialentity.
(23:06):
We don't follow the same rules.
Government should move moreslowly.
It, we should be more cautious.
It's the commons, it doesn'tbelong to an entrepreneur, it
belongs to all.
In theory, in a democracy, itshould belong to the people and
it serve the people.
So you have this interestingmoment where all the things that
were my tools, as a entrepreneurand an advocate for good
(23:31):
government and, digitization arebeing brought in a way that, and
a scale and a velocity.
And I'm curious, how you seethis in the UK.
And I also want to, there's alsobeen a narrative emerging of
maybe the UK spent too muchmoney on digital transformation.
Maybe this hasn't worked out.
I've seen this narrative startto emerge in media as well, and
(23:51):
again, suspicious of that.
So there's sort of two questionsbuilding here, and I'd love to
hear both, both as atechnologist supporting and
working alongside government andadvocating for government, and
advocating for technology withingovernment, how do you perceive
the US.
And then also, as a UK citizen,hearing a new critique of maybe
we have too many digital peopleworking in the UK government
(24:12):
right now.
Maybe there's too much.
Are we getting the value we werepromised?
There's sort of two sides ofthis and sort to throw two
questions at the same time, butI love to hear your thoughts on
both of those, because I thinkthey start to converge in an
interesting place.
Vijay K Luthra (24:24):
Yeah.
And look, my my starting pointfor all of this is my, my, my
view is we need a new paradigmfor why we do digital
transformation in government.
I would also say, more more orless transformation is now more
or less all digital these days.
(24:46):
We also in in UK circles when wetalk about reform, by which we
generally mean the same thing,we mean transformation.
We also have a political partycalled reform, but let's not
talk about them.
And certainly, you alluded tothe the world's richest man is
now ripping apart the UK, the USgovernment.
And we've had.
similar similar posturing in theUK.
(25:09):
Musk is not posturing.
He's actually ripping apart theUS government.
Thankfully we haven't had thathappen here.
Although we've had people offerto do that.
My view of those kind of offersis if you look at the way that
Musk is operating, it's really,it's a nihilistic approach to
(25:29):
the state.
As in, I dislike the state,think partly because they don't
understand the state.
Slightly controversialperspective from me, but, as
someone who has grown up, I'm akidney transplanter, grew up
with a a chronic kidneycondition.
So I'm only here because of theefforts of the NHS.
I spent a very short part of mylife on welfare.
(25:53):
I'm state educated in the UK, soI have had huge benefit from
public services.
I value them hugely.
I'm a critical friend that, Ilike to think that I can see
where the issues are, but I'm byand large an advocate for public
services.
I look at people like Musk and Isee people who have never had to
(26:14):
make use of those services.
They don't understand them.
They don't value them, and theydon't see the contribution those
services make to civilization togo back to the Oliver Wendell
Homes quotes, And I, my sense ofthe, the sort of the Musk or the
(26:36):
equivalent in the UK might be bethe gentleman called Tom
Blomfield, who.
Is one of founders of MonzoBank.
And relatively recently put acontentious statement out on
Twitter[now known as X].
I feel like with a small team intwo to three years, proven tech
founders could automate hugechunks of the government.
(26:56):
I would sign up for a tour ofduty in the UK.
It would need a lot of politicalair cover.
I have no desire to fightmassive bureaucracy.
I think that view is naive andit's wrongheaded.
It's pretty much the same viewthat Musk seems to be taking,
but my sense is it's driven froma place of small state, good
lower taxes, good private sectorbest.
(27:17):
And in my view, none of thesethings are true.
In a in a balanced world, youneed both government and the
private sector to work hand inhand to create stable societies.
It's not a zero sum game.
But as I say, if you've neverhad to make use of those
services, then you probablyresent that you pay lots of
taxes, which go towards fundingthose services.
(27:39):
But I would say that we need adifferent paradigm and my view
on all of this is that, we are,we're in a new era, a new era
that is different to any that'scome before.
Some people try and compare itto say the industrial
Revolution, but I think it'seven more it's even more,
revolutionary and fundamentalthan that I've taken to calling
(28:01):
it the fifth industrialrevolution.
I know some people already referto a fourth industrial
revolution.
I I've chosen fifth industrialrevolution because there's a
distinction between the sort ofthe fourth industrial
revolution, which is theemergence of big tech.
The fifth industrial revolutionis not just about the emergence
of AI, but it's also about thechange in the human condition
(28:24):
that we see.
Alongside that.
Going back to your point aboutjudgment and critical thinking,
in a world that is powered by AIthe thing that is left for
humanity is judgment andcritical thinking.
And so the way I advocate forapproaching government and
public service reform is it'sany paradigm that's based around
we're gonna save X amount ofmoney or drive X amount of
(28:46):
efficiency is going to put youon a course where you are bound
to fail because it's gonna beabout numbers.
It's gonna be about the lowestcommon denominator and
invariably, I think, you arealways gonna over promise and
under deliver.
My renewed paradigm.
(29:07):
What I would encourage listenersto think about is what's the
human benefit That we are goingto get from implementing this
technology.
We need a, what I would call ahuman centered future.
So where we are digitizingservices, how does that make
life better for people?
(29:28):
CEVA, my company, we do a lot ofwork in health.
One of the things I'm always atpains to stress is.
Where is the benefit for thepeople who are in health
systems?
And that is not just cliniciansit's also the administrators who
work with clinicians.
It's very definitely thepatients, but it's also the
carers who have to look afterthe patients.
(29:48):
So if we are doing things thatbenefit of those groups of
people, then why are we doingit?
And I think that's thefundamental shift that we need
when we think about digitaltransformation in government.
What's the human what is thehuman outcome that we want?
And the answer to that shouldbe, it should be better
(30:09):
services, but better servicesthat deliver to outcomes.
Delivering to outcomes, what doI mean by that?
Let's take education.
What, do we want from education?
We want happy, well-roundedcitizens who are able to go out
into the workforce and prosper.
That is the purpose ofeducation.
If we're gonna start digitizingelements of how education is
(30:33):
delivered, then does itcontribute towards that end
goal?
No, if it doesn't, then take agood look at whether it's worth
doing or not healthcare, localgovernment.
You can always make a case fortransaction processing to be
more efficient, to be muchquicker.
But let's be frank in largeparts of the world, some of
(30:56):
those transactional processesthat are currently done by
hundreds, perhaps thousands ofpeople are providing employment
opportunities to communitiesthat would otherwise be
decimated.
So you are gonna say, let'sdigitize all of that, all of
that, tra that transactionprocessing over there, what
(31:18):
happens to all of those jobs?
Again, it comes back to what'sthe what's the human outcome?
Paul (31:22):
I love this piece and I want to pull back around to one
piece.
There's a tiny anecdote that I,that is, that sprung into my
mind as you were talking, whichwas at one point in my career
at, when I was the CEO of acompany and had a leadership
team.
We were having interestingconversation about a person on
our team, not within ourleadership team, but who was key
employee in our company, who wasquite clearly having a mental
(31:45):
health moment, just a momentwhere they were not at their
best.
There was probably somethinghappening outside of work that
was impacting the performance atwork.
And where we were having aconversation on what should we
do here to support this person?
Because they are key to ourbusiness and to our success as a
business.
And we are discussing, mentalhealth outcomes and one of the
people on my leadership teamsaid we can't be having this
(32:06):
conversation.
This is not our problem.
We are a business and they threwout the, we are a business,
trump card.
I said, I don't think thatphrase of, the Milton Friedman
view of we are, profit is theonly purpose for business.
I said I don't, I just don'tthink it's a get out of jail
free card for still being a partof society.
Vijay K Luthra (32:27):
Not t'all.
Paul (32:27):
Being a business doesn't excuse you from still being a
human being, employing humans,being a function within society.
And I do think whether we're inthe public service side, I don't
think government gets to have aget out of jail card from
efficiency and effectivenesseither, like, on both sides, I
think it cuts both ways, butjust this idea that business is
somehow immune from themessiness of humanity.
(32:50):
I don't think that is, I don'tthink that's an acceptable
posture to take, but the factthat government doesn't also
have to perform and delivervalue, also, but at the bottom
line, we want multiple thingsfrom government.
We would like good policy.
We would like enforcement wherethose policies are contravened,
where the law is contrave, Wewant policy, but then the other
(33:10):
major arm of government in mostdemocracies in the world is
service delivery.
They are a service delivery arm.
They take on the services likein Canada in the UK, healthcare,
education.
Those aren't universallyconsidered government services,
but I think, you and I grew upin a world where we can't even
imagine a world in which.
The basics of healthcare, thebasics are provided to all
(33:33):
people, regardless of do youcome to, do you arrive here on a
boat, in a state of desperation,did you walk across a border.
We wanna eliminate suffering forthe other members of our
species.
So we ask government to do thosethings that don't really fit
into a business model.
A business would never takethose things on.
Those are not profitablebusinesses.
Those are not effectivebusinesses.
(33:53):
Those are not scalablebusinesses.
That's not really the space thatbusiness wants to live in.
So we ask government to do thosethings for us.
And we all contribute out of ourincome, to, to that pot that,
that we.
Then hand back to government.
So with that mindset, here weare where that, these concepts
are under attack, we're, and yetwe still need to operate.
(34:13):
So you and I sit as advisors togovernment today, for the most
part.
So I'd love to hear, what areyou saying, given this
impossible moment, we're inwhere we've stopped trusting
institutions.
We, we, know, government isunder attack.
Truth itself is.
personal, rather than normalizedin society, and an objective,
and yet, we still would likegovernment to exist.
(34:36):
I think most people would notwant government to disappear.
They might say it, they mighteven vote for it, but if you sit
and think about the implicationsof the roads crumble the
military evaporates, our bordersactually become fully porous.
We don't want these things to goaway.
We want better than they are,for the most part.
How do you advise yourcustomers?
What are the mindsets for thosewithin government who are
(34:57):
dealing with this moment wherethey are distrusted; they're
under attack; the rules arechanging; the sands are
shifting; how do you operatetoday?
I know that's a challengingquestion just to throw, but I
think that's what we're tryingto get to here.
Vijay K Luthra (35:09):
Yeah, it's a really difficult one.
I try and encourage everybody toadopt a positive mindset, which
is difficult.
Because if you're constantlyunder attack, then, It can be
incredibly, it's winding, to beconstantly under attack by the
person, and by politicalleaders.
I do think there is an inherentvirtue in public service.
I think for example Dan Honigprofessor, University College
(35:32):
London in the UK and atGeorgetown in the US, Dan's
book, Mission DrivenBureaucrats.
At the center of that is thatmost people get into public
service out of an intrinsicsense of duty and commitment.
And I think that's true.
That is largely why I became acivil servant is also largely
(35:54):
why I still work in publicservices.
I have more agency now that I'mnot.
inside public services, but, Istill have a passion and an
interest in seeing our statebecome strong, agile, resilient
in the way it needs to be to, toweather the, the challenges that
we've discussed.
And those are the kind of thingsthat, that I try and encourage
(36:16):
in, clients is, to try and stayupbeat, which is easier said
than done.
Again, pretty much everybody Italk to is in their role because
they fundamentally believe thatpublic services are an important
part of creating successfulnation states.
And so I ask people to, to keepthat front and center.
And then I think also, I alwaystry and encourage people to
(36:39):
think more, more broadly.
We've dwelt a great deal on, howchanged the world is.
I think it's important to alwayslocate yourself in that context
and to think very carefullyabout what do we need from
public services in this renewedworld.
It is still, it is clear thatthere are still a great many
(37:00):
people who do need publicservices.
And again, I think that's quitea powerful idea that, as a civil
servant or a public servant, youare at the center of creating a
future that is vitally importantto the nation that you serve and
vitally important to thousands,millions of individuals within
(37:22):
that nation.
And so I think, that sort ofmindset is quite important.
As I say, it's, difficult tostay positive all the time.
But I also encourage people,going back to this idea of human
centeredness, is to considertechnology as an enabler,
because it is an enabler.
It is not about technologyversus human.
(37:44):
It's about human and technology,but the human always has to come
first.
So where we are putting in placea piece of software or, perhaps
we're AI as is the flavor of themoment everywhere, including in,
in government and publicservices.
But how are we meaningfullymaking use?
(38:05):
Of, of AI, where we aredeploying it, how are we
preparing our workforce to beable to exploit these new tools
that we put at their disposal.
I'm conscious I didn't answeryour question about, the success
of digital transformationinitiatives in the UK and I
think this goes back to themindsets piece in that, in the
(38:27):
past we, we've often approachedthe big initiatives.
There's a really famous examplein the UK NPfIT, The National
Program for IT, which was a, anattempt to digitize the NHS at
national level, which whicheventually ended.
The contract was terminated.
It was, a huge piece of workover, billions, not millions of
(38:51):
pounds and it, it failed.
There were some, there were oneor two legacy elements, which
are still in use, by and largethe project failed.
I would say it goes back to theparadigm that the, that program
was about efficiency, it wasdriven from a place of let's
save money, it wasn't drivenfrom a place of let's improve
(39:13):
outcomes.
Let's, use this program to drivebetter patient outcomes, to help
clinicians do a better job.
It wasn't driven from thatplace.
It was driven from a place of,we're gonna spend, 2 billion
pounds to save 10 billionpounds.
I'd maintain that taking thatapproach is generally going to
lead to failure.
Paul (39:36):
I love this for two reasons.
There's a crisis moment we're atfor those of us who sit in and
surrounding public service, butalso in and surrounding
technology.
Which is, technology will nevertell us why, it will only tell
us how it's just, it's tools.
It's software.
It's how something happens.
(39:58):
yet also as a Canadian, I gottaquote Marshall McLuhan, the
medium being the message.
It also contains with it a setof values, technology brings
values along with it.
Even though it is not itselfgenerative of those values, the
people who create technology,where.
here in Canada, in the UK, inthe US to pick the three
companies that you and I can seemost clearly.
(40:20):
From where we sit we have atechnologist questioning the
validity of public serviceitself.
We have a moment in the UK wherethere's a bit of a reckoning.
We have a moment in Canada wherethe nation is under threat,
there is this crisis occurring.
And I think this is a momentwhere we all need to sit back
and say, what do we wish to haveon the other side of this?
(40:42):
What are the things that wechoose to value still?
What are those core values thatwe have of, yeah, we want a
social safety net.
There is a floor below which wedon't want our neighbors to
sink.
Those who live in our communityand around us, there's some
minimum standards that we wishto have exist.
I would like a road that ispaved to come by my house.
Should I need to call a policeofficer if I'm in danger, I
(41:05):
would like them to have a pavedroad to drive on to get to my
house in a city.
I would like that police serviceto exist and to be effective.
I would like a hospital to beopen and willing to see my child
should my child become ill inthe middle of the night.
These are things I wish to haveexist.
And I still deeply believe intechnology.
I also don't want this moment inthe US to destroy our faith in
technology as an enabler of goodgovernment as well.
(41:27):
I think that's another dangerthat we're facing here of, the
tech bros may put us off ourwillingness to even engage.
As much as I probably to somedegree am a tech bro, in that
I'm male, I'm in tech.
There's this moment, where Ijust hope you don't lose the
possibilities.
I talked to somebody who was onObama's digital team at one
point, and I said what's the USstrategy?
(41:48):
He said We just look at the UKand see what works and what
doesn't, and copy the goodstuff.
That's what we're doing.
And it was like, a lot of uswatched the UK for a long time
as an early mover in digitalgovernment as a leader.
And in, I'm in tech, noteverything goes well.
Not everything produces theoutcome we promised at the
beginning, but I don't thinkthat means that it's not worth
trying.
So I am still hopeful.
(42:08):
I I still believe that there,there's possibility here.
What so I guess to a closingquestion, Vijay, we've talked
about some existential issueshere.
We've talked about some, someArmageddon, like outcomes,
potentially here, glanced aroundthese things, authoritarianism,
the populism, the end of allgovernment, who knows the end of
society, like, glance aroundthese, what has you hopeful
right now?
(42:29):
What are you hopeful for in, inthe next year?
Vijay K Luthra (42:35):
Uh, that, that is a really, really good
question.
I and I'm tempted to say I'mtempted to say there's nothing
to hope for but I, obviously, Idon't believe that.
Otherwise I wouldn't be here.
I I think we're in an inflectionpoint.
The world is very often atinflection points, bigger or
smaller but I think we're, onthe edge of a big inflection
(42:57):
point around technology if welook at the rate of progression
of AI, for example it's clearthat AI is going to become a
foundational technology forhumanity going forward.
And my, my hope is that we havesome very powerful tools at our
(43:19):
disposal that will help us solvesome existential problems.
Will it help us solve climatechange?
Maybe.
A, a great example is, greatBritish technologists Demis
Hassabis recently awarded aNobel Prize for protein analysis
using AI.
Dennis is obviously it's,founder and CEO of DeepMind, now
(43:42):
Google DeepMind.
Without the power of DeepMind,it would've taken us a great
deal longer to have, broken thischallenge around protein folding
and the scientific applications,particularly in, disease are
very significant.
My sense is that as technologyaccelerates our ability to solve
(44:03):
problems, Should alsoaccelerate.
And I think as long as we cankeep that technology in the
right hands, that being theoperative challenge, I see a
potentially a very bright futurefor humanity.
In partnership with thesetechnologies.
It goes back to the point wewere just discussing technology
is the how it's an enabler, itis not the end.
(44:25):
It is the means.
But I think as long as we keepthat up front of mind, then, you
know we potentially have a verybright future ahead of us as a
species.
On the flip side, it could allgo probably wrong and, we could
end up destroying civilizationin, in the next 24 months but
who knows really.
Paul (44:47):
I am deeply aware that we've talked about current
events in this show and in apodcast that won't be coming out
later today or tomorrow, buthopefully later this month and
we'll see what continues to betrue that we have discussed by
the time that anyone listens tothis particular conversation.
Vijayay, thank you for yourtime.
This was a bit of a ramble.
As we said, we would probablyhave when we started this.
(45:08):
We're gonna ramble along throughthis thing.
We'll see where we get.
But I think we touched on someessential questions that I hope
on any side of the politicalspectrum, people are asking
themselves of what do weactually wish to have for humans
on the other side of all ofthese moments that we're in and
what role can technology play inthe betterment of the
government, which must continueto exist in some format.
(45:30):
We will have government.
We will have organization.
We will have society is just isit a society that benefits the
most humans or the fewesthumans.
I think it's probably a goodlens to bring to it.
Really grateful for your tide[time] today here, sir.
Thank you for the conversation.
Vijay K Luthra (45:45):
Thank you so much, Paul.
I've enjoyed it immensely.
Paul (45:53):
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Vijay and I are going to stay intouch and look for more points
of collaboration between the UKand Canada.
Some of the themes in ourconversation that I've found
interesting included that thechange in our media ecosystem
and our information diet meanthat many of us have very
different information andnarratives about government.
(46:14):
Big tech brings with it a beliefsystem that isn't always
congruent with the mindset ofgovernment.
Human centric design and policyare essential to be sure that we
get the best outcomes fromdisruptive technology like AI.
And we're cautiously optimisticfor the future.
It's important for government tofind a healthy relationship with
(46:34):
technology.
That's what digitaltransformation is all about.
I hope you enjoyed myconversation with Vijay Luthra.
Please do subscribe and followthe many conversations we're
going to be releasing throughoutthe year.
I'd like to thank my colleagueswho worked with me on this
podcast.
Kathy Watton is our showproducer and editor.
Frederick Brummer and AhmedKhalil created our theme music
(46:57):
and intro.
I'm going to keep havingconversations like this.
Thanks for tuning in.
If you've got ideas for theguests we should speak to, send
us an email to the311@northern.
co.
The public service is about allof us, and when it's done right,
digital can be a key ingredientfor a better world.
(47:17):
This has been the 311 Podcast,and I'm your host, Paul Bellows.
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