Key takeaways from the World Government Summit, Dubai (#WGS2023)

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I attended the World Government Summit 2023 (#WGS2023) in Dubai last week. This is the largest global conference on technology-led innovation in government systems/services (think #GovTech). Hosted by the Dubai Govt in collaboration with the WEF & UN, the attendees included heads of states, govt representatives, besides other #GovTech stakeholders from the private sector, tech & startup ecosystems. And they certainly pulled out all stops to make it a grand gathering- think “Davos for Government Sector“… in the middle of the desert!

I was a participant in the Govt Services Forum (#GXperience) – a series of five conversations on the future of government services given the rapid strides in technology driven digital public goods (DPGs). My session was centered on digital identity (other sessions were on Payments, Citizen Engagement, AI, Metaverse). Jotted down some observations and takeaways from the summit… sharing it below (also some event pics in the deck).

Platform to showcase DPGs: WGS is THE PLACE to showcase and learn about the cutting edge in digital public goods globally. Any significant digital transformation project that’s making an impact in some part of the world – it was at WGS! Kudos to the Dubai Govt for creating this global knowledge sharing forum targeted at world govts!

GX is the Holy Grail: GX (acronym for Government Experience) is the key catchword policy planners and implementation managers need to grok. Citizens the world over expect their governments to match (even surpass!) the experience provided by for-profit private sector companies. Governments have traditionally operated on a “just-in-time”, “it-barely-works” mode.. this has to give way to high quality citizen experiences to gain trust and credibility. Again I thought WGS/Dubai hit the nail on the head with its laser sharp focus on GX as a conference theme.

IndiaStack recognition: There is tremendous global respect & admiration for IndiaStack in catalyzing India’s digital transformation. Many countries are seeking cues from India on how to kickstart and navigate their own digital identity, data, payment programs. I read this TOI news article in the buildup to the event on how many countries are looking to sign MOUs with Indian Govt for IndiaStack, including 7 just for DigiLocker! (I personally wasn’t involved in this).

ChatGPT has shaken up Govts: Needless to say, ChatGPT was everywhere… from the @ElonMusk keynote to top UN/WEF speakers! Govts have suddenly been woken up to the power/risks of general purpose AI knocking at the doorsteps. It was actually fun to see almost all conf sessions get eventually highjacked by ChatGPT!

Every country is on a Zero-to-One digital journey: Most countries have some ongoing digitization programs involving digital identity, citizen data, payments (or their combination). You can sense a plethora of Zero-to-One journeys (think #PeterThiel)… eveyone is somewhere on the continuum, and most have building grounds up, figuring it out for themselves. Given what we know about the power of open sourced learning, there is a strong case for countries learning from one another to preclude reinventing everything from scratch (within the confines of national uniqueness, security etc).

Govts are caught in Project v/s Product battle: One of my key learnings (while working in the Govt) has been the dichotomy between projects and products. Governments as a system excel at projects, but digital transformations often require you to think products, not necessarily projects. Govts (by their DNA) are not designed to build & run products – this factor often shows up as a big hindrance. I spoke about this difference, and it resonated strongly with the audience – many people walked up to me later to understand this nuance better.

Standardization & Interoperability is mostly an afterthought: This is just an observation, not advocating it necessarily. Since most govt digital platforms are being built uniquely, grounds-up from zero base, (international) standardization and/or interoperability is either not on the agenda, or at best an afterthought. While I’d imagine this is a complex issue that needs deeper thinking, there could be cases where international citizen data interoperability really helps – e.g. Covid international vaccine certificates initially were a big challenge due to lack of common standards.

Global race for tech talent: Being at a multi-govt forum can put you amongst interesting conversations. One such conversation I found myself in was very insightful wrt global immigration strategies – how diff countries are bracing up for some kind of a global race to attract and retain the best technology talent, that can go on to become a national asset (think golden visas, startup visas, easy immigration policies etc). In India, we pbly dont think about this topic as much, but many countries are thinking strategically to future proof their national digital transformation journeys.

Divergence b/w global North & South: In many areas, one could make out a palpable diff on how the developed world and the emerging south differ in their thinking. The developing world sees digitization as a do-or-die project… it’s their passport to leapfrogging historical systemic inadequacies in a fast paced way, whereas the developed world is far more contemplative. Case in point – one of the speakers from the US (who’s worked in digital projects under the Obama Govt) shared the strong challenges they’re facing from their state govts (wrt digital identity) within the US federal system. I felt there is far less of this dynamics in the emerging markets.

Credits:
“https://twitter.com/shawaqiii/status/1383360530153230340

How can startups leverage their advisory board? First – stop conflating them with investors!

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One of Silicon Valley’s success mantras is how startups tap into functional experts via their advisory boards. Check out this snippet

This is from a Sequoia post on #SaaStr22. It points to how Silicon Valley companies leverage their relationship with advisors having deep functional expertise, and this has now become part of their tribal knowledge ( or “unfair advantage”).

In contrast, startups in India IMHO generally underutilize advisors or fail to engage them effectively. I seldom see Indian startups having a sound advisory board of functional experts… though they do have lots of angel/seed investors. Why would this be?

I think this is due to a misplaced understanding of the strategic role advisors can play & how they’re diff from investors! Investors & advisors have separate roles to play – sometimes they may happen to be the same person, but not necessarily.

I’ve seen many people (or mentors) counsel startup founders not to get an advisor on board, unless he/she also invests in the round (aka “has skin in the game”)! This is just bad advice and displays a faulty interpretation of the underlying dynamics. Let me elaborate why…

1) Advisors are professionally acclaimed people with strong functional expertise in some area, that you would love to hire or bring on board, but can’t.. either you can’t afford them, or they are not available, or out of bounds.

Think 10X impact from an industry expert or a highly experienced maestro!

2) Seed/Angel investors on the other hand are people who are looking to invest in the startup and make a financial upside. Off course, they can be highly skilled in one or more areas and can be valuable advisors as well, but that’s not necessary.

If startups conflate the two roles, they end up shrinking the advisory base and can miss out on a talent/skill pool that could help them leapfrog in specific areas. Not all advisors are looking to invest – they may not have the financial resources, or think startups are too risky (v/s public mkts) to invest their own money.

It’s not hard to see why this pattern shows up prominently in India – many business models are transactional in nature & this shapes the prevailing worldview and practices in the ecosystem. Blame our (in)famous value consciousness! If the advisor doesn’t demonstrate skin in the game by investing (the transaction!), how do we know they care? There’s an inherent trust deficit in giving out “free equity” to anyone!

IMHO looking at the advisory role from a transactional lens is missing the woods for the trees. Deep domain expertise is incredibly hard to get by for a fledgling startup – if you can potentially get an industry leader to help you, imposing the investing criterion is unwise and self-defeating. These are resources startups badly want to have access to, not the other way around!

Case in point – at SlideShare we were very lucky to onboard a terrific advisory board in 2007 – Guy Kawasaki (top communications coach & marketer), Hal Varian (Chief Economist at Google & who was Rashmi’s prof at Univ of Berkeley) & Dave McClure (growth hacking & distribution guru).

We offered them advisory equity – they all were renowned in their respective areas, and their expertise could make a real diff to SS. As a small startup, there was NO WAY we could have hired them (or anyone else of that caliber). It so happened, Hal & Dave later also angel-invested in us… but that was totally incidental. Clearly we valued them highly and felt the (little) time we got to spend with them once or twice a year was totally worth it.

I really hope startups in India don’t fall for this “advisors must also become investors” thinking that many mentors in the Indian ecosystem espouse and drill into founders’ mental models.

Here’s what I suggest:

1) As the Sequoia snippet explains, keep aside some advisory equity to use in a focused, targeted way to onboard valuable functional advisors who can help your startup shift orbits.

2) Pick professionals who are real craftsmen in their respective fields. And do this only once your startup can demonstrate progress – many advisors may not want to associate until you’ve hit some milestones (and that’s ok).

3) Offer them equity from your advisory pool, don’t worry about investing. If they are good, their inputs will be worth FAR more than their $$.

4) If they also show interest in investing, have them join in.

5) Possible India doesn’t have as much depth in the advisory pool (as SV), but the imp thing here is the principle involved. I’d argue if you don’t conflate the two roles, the pool is much bigger than what it appears!

6) In your mental model (& in your funding pitch decks), keep/show the board of advisors separate from your investors pool.

Recommended Read: https://carta.com/blog/advisor-advisory-shares/