The project is seen as ground-breaking, not only because it’s a way of gathering innovative ideas with a strong focus on its impact in achieving a better and more sustainable future for all, but also for the way it engages the citizens and the Startup community, namely trough a very transparent voting process based on an emergent technology: blockchain.

The voting phase was designed to function as an online game, in which everyone could play and have fun participating in all the process. The goal was to engage the community in an amusing way, while promoting the SDGs and innovative solutions.

Moreover, the competition is oriented to small and medium companies with a strong focus on out of the box thinking and innovative ideas that have proven to be in line with the 2030 Agenda, and some of them have presented a very good basis of scientific research and technological capabilities, with potential to be replicated in other contexts and projects.

The 1st GovTech edition is already over. The finalists were chosen and are currently working with the Startup incubators and the Portuguese public entities that are helping their projects to take off, both nationally, as internationally.

The number of eligible projects submitted to the competition, as well as the number of participants and voters registered on the website on this first edition are considered very positive results. Because of that, there’s already an ongoing 2nd GovTech edition.

Other countries have also shown interest about the way the competition was run and the way citizens and startups have been engaged, so we’re already sharing our experience and diffusing lessons.

The use of blockchain in the voting process was also important, since this initiative served as a testing ground to experiment and test the potential of this emergent technology. The lessons drawn from it, are now going to be useful when AMA decides to use blockchain again.

The initiative was developed by AMA in coordination with the Camões Institute. Private entities in the SME community, specifically Startup incubators, were also involved, which allowed to publicize the competition and gather a significant number of projects.

Such partnerships also gave the competitors the opportunity to showcase their projects and the winners the chance to work with well-established companies, enabling new partnerships and the sharing of experiences and best practices.

The fact that the competition is based on the SDG’s values, means that it covers several different groups, from women, to people suffering from disabilities, to the elderly, to entrepreneurs, etc. Nevertheless, it's a competition focused on the Startup context, which are traditionally seen as a group prone to innovation, with a potential to promote a sustainable economic growth.

2018 was the year of the GovTech first edition. 140 projects were submitted and 113 were approved, covering all the 17 SDGs. In fact, most of the projects that were presented responded to more than one SDG’s, proving their cross-cutting nature.

1 744 people / investors were registered in the online platform, which led to the creation of 1 532 virtual wallets, the issuing of 4 963 100 Govtechs and, of those, 4 559 312 were actually invested in the projects, allowing to choose the 6 finalists. In the end, there were 3 winning projects.

Besides, the all process allowed the dissemination of the SDGs principles in a community known by its creativity, as well as the establishment of new networks and partnerships that now have the potential to innovate and work together. It gave the competitors the opportunity to showcase their projects, and gave the winners the opportunity to work with these companies, enabling the sharing of experiences and best practices.

The use of blockchain was a challenge, mainly because the voting system had to be something replicable, secure, transparent but also user friendly. The voters had to feel comfortable using it, so the solution was to design the voting process as a game, which ended up working perfectly
Also important was a communication strategy that appealed the younger and those working in the Startup context, so it was decided to have a very informal language in all the competition communications and to really use social media and the webportal to communicate. The goal was to show that this was a light, funny and innovative initiative, open to everyone with an out-of-the-box idea. Concepts that are not usually associated with the public administration.
Finally, another challenge was to chosen the projects that could participate in the competition. There were a lot of submissions covering very different areas, so there was the need to create a multidisciplinary team to evaluate all the applications.

An initiative such as this needs to be well communicated to the public. People need to know the criterions to submit their applications, know the rules of the competition, and later know the projects in which to vote and understand all the process of the competition. That can only be possible through a well-planned communication strategy.

The top political support is also of major importance. A competition of such magnitude needs human and financial resources to succeed, as well as a dedicated team to design the all process and evaluate all the project submissions accordingly to the criterions. These types of resources are only available if the project has the political support.

Finally, the right partnerships are considered essential, not only between entities from the public administration, but also with private companies. The Startup context is a very specific one, so it’s important to engage them, namely Startup incubators, since the beginning of the project.

In Govtech, the goal was to stimulate the Startup microsystem around all the 2030 Agenda. But, competitions such as these can be organized around specific SDGs, or used to promote and stimulate other type of entities, like the academia for example. The potential to replicate this competition model is a vast one, and can only be limited by one's imagination.

The use of blockchain in the voting process is also something that served as a learning process to the Portuguese government. It was the first time a governmental initiative used blockchain, so the goal was also to test the potential of this emergent technology and have some lessons learned that can now be used in future projects.

Moreover, the competition is oriented to small and medium companies with a strong focus on out of the box thinking and some of them have presented a very good basis of scientific research and technological capabilities, with potential to be applied in other contexts and projects.

This is not the first competition directed to Startups and organized by the Portuguese government. The Startup Simplex, organized in 2016 in the scope of the Simplex program (a simplification and modernization program of the Portuguese public administration) , had some lessons learned that were very useful for the GovTech. One of the most important one was the need to only accept projects to compete, if they had a viable and working prototype and a sound business case. Otherwise, after the competition, the chance of these projects to succeed was much lower.

The use of blockchain was also of value. It was an opportunity to experiment the technology, and at the same time have a safe and transparent voting process. A process that seemed like a game to the participants, so it was easier to engage people to vote.

To partner with the right entities is paramount to the success of the initiative. As so, AMA partnered with private entities with a strong role and reputation in the SME community, specifically Startup incubators, which allowed to publicize the competition, gather a significant number of projects, and showcase the projects, enabling the establishment of future partnerships.

Other important partners of the initiative were: PME-Investiments, a public financial society whose mission is to promote the financing offer to SME; and SOFID, a development financial institution that supports investment projects of Portuguese companies in emerging and developing countries

AMA had a strong role as the project manager of GovTech, but the online platform of the competition and the voting process using blockchain was the result of a procurement process. The public tender was won by Bright Pixel, who was in charge of the technology part of the project in close coordination with the AMA Digital Transformation and Information Systems Departments.