Emerging Leaders

The Emerging Leaders Programme (ELP) was first introduced in 2008 as the Future Leaders Programme (FLP). Today some of the participants to the programme hold key government positions and a number even lead an active role in the ICA community.

The aim of this programme is to introduce new “Thought Leaders”. By fostering innovation and disruptiveness the ELP will further expand the ICA exchange experience and networking but mainly support the responsiveness to new challenges by identifying key topics of interest to be addressed through collaboration and co-creation in ICA led common work/study groups.

The ELP objectives will:

• Allow emerging leaders of digital governments from all over the world to benefit from the ICA community experience & network, and vice versa.
• Bring together these emerging leaders onto the ICA common platform in order to allow opportunity to interact and collaborate towards delivering key outcomes on strategic topics which are of interest to both the emerging leaders and ICA.
• Develop a network pipeline of driven and engaged emerging leaders who will help to take ICA towards the future.

The ELP candidacy pre-requisites include:

• Candidates must be sponsored by at least one national representative or in the event of non-members, a government agency official, by way of an email letter sent to the ICA Secretariat. The proposal should present the potential candidate in sufficient detail and specify his/her support to this person.
• Candidates must hold an active position in an e-Government (related) environment, be it at local, regional or national level.
• Candidates must be fluent in English (speaking and writing).
• ICA members but also non-members are welcome to make a nomination.
• Member countries are also encouraged to nominate potential leaders from emerging countries, who are not ICA members, but would benefit from links to the ICA or from countries who are former ICA members.
• The ELP candidate must communicate in writing his/her motivation to take part in the Programme and support the candidacy to the study group for at least one of the key topics to be addressed. Candidates must submit his/her letter and CV to the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
• The ICA Secretariat will present the candidates to the ICA Board at its spring meeting. After discussion and comparison with other candidates, the Board will decide on this year’s candidates by simple majority vote.

ELP study/work group key topics:

The Board and Programme Committee identifies, based on the ICA community interests, identify the key topics to be further collaborated upon and presented during the annual conference and/or periodic webinars and publications.

2024-2025 Key Topic

Enhancing Cross-Border Document Authentication Through AI and Data Integration

In an increasingly globalized world, individuals frequently require official documents from one country to be recognized in another. Governments, however, face significant challenges in verifying the authenticity of such documents. Birth certificates, marriage licenses, academic degrees, and other legal papers are often susceptible to forgery, inconsistency in format, and lack of a unified verification framework. The absence of an international standards, APIs and protocols for document authentication leads to bureaucratic inefficiencies, delays in service delivery, and potential security risks, such as identity fraud and unlawful access to rights and benefits. The most significant bureaucratic burden caused by the lack of such an authentication framework lies on the citizens, who are required to prove the authenticity of their documents in various methods.

An AI-driven international document authentication network presents a transformative solution for governments worldwide. By leveraging AI technology, data collaboration, and secure digital frameworks, this initiative can significantly enhance efficiency, reduce fraud, and improve public service delivery. Implementing such a solution requires cross-border cooperation, technological investment, and a commitment to global digital trust. We propose to start from a small prototype and pilot, and move gradually to a wider solution and a wider network. The ICA as an organization is based on trust between ICT officials from various countries, and therefore might serve as an optimal pioneer for the design and implementation of such a network. We believe that with a structured approach, governments can ensure seamless, secure, and reliable document verification for the 21st century.

Building Borderless Trust - Team Leads

2023 key topic

RTE and Sustainable Technologies in Public Sector

Climate change forces not only citizens and enterprises to adapt, but also the public sector needs to take actions to lower its ecological footprint. The European Commission has launched its "Green Deal"; a major programme to make Europe more ecologically friendly. Therefore, countries are called to take action. Every year EU countries will have to report on their progress in this matter. During this session we discuss and exchange good practice in the public sector context on how to achieve ecologically friendly governments and tackle "green" in ICT strategies.

To provide comparable and measurable ecological footprint, we need quality data. It helps the public and private sector to make more data-driven decisions and measure more effectively the impact of our decisions.

In the second part of the session, we will focus on Real-Time Economy and business data standardisation. Our goal is to simplify life for businesses but also for citizens as well as the state, empowering them with more time to invest in their productive work through real-time exchange of high-quality data. Better and more data-driven business environment will increase overall economic growth and provide the public sector more data-driven decision making in the government. The purpose of this topic is to elaborate on how standardised data can enable new innovative and more personalised as well as responsive public services, including AI-based services through the best practice examples of our Member States.

Emerging Leaders 2023: RTE and Sustainable Technologies in Public Sector

Sustainable Technologies in Public Sector

Real-Time Economy

2022 key topics

Real-time Economy in Public sector

Real-time economy (RTE) is an environment where all the transactions between business entities are in digital format, increasingly automatically generated, and completed in real-time without store and forward processing, both from business and IT-processing perspectives. In Public Sector, the main benefit of RTE is associated with the elimination of "unproductive work" performed by businesses, citizens and the state, which can be done through real-time exchange of high-quality data. E.g.: imagine the full digital cycle from public consultation ➔ eProcurement ➔ eInvoicing ➔ accounting (also in a cross-border context). The purpose of this topic is to discuss the challenges, burdens and needs to implement a RTE status in public sector.

Sustainable technologies in public sector:

Climate change forces not only citizens and enterprises to adapt, but also compel the public sector to take actions in lowering its ecological footprint. As Government CIO’s we need to review the energy consumption of our data centers, chose other “greener” sources of energy, revisit the isolation of our computer rooms and buildings in general, maybe reduce our travels, etc.

The European Commission has launched its “Green Deal”; a major programme to make Europe more ecological friendly. Therefore, countries are invited to take action. Every year EU countries will have to report on their progress in this matter. The purpose of this topic is to discuss and exchange good practices in the public sector context.

Govtech in emerging countries:

GovTech is about applying emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence, advanced sensing, blockchain, advanced data processing, etc.) in order to improve the delivery of public services through increasing efficiency and lowering costs. One may consider that this is easier to implement in advanced countries. But is this really so? Emerging countries could maybe leapfrog and be more efficient than the western world. So, who inspires whom in this matter? The purpose of this topic is to discuss and exchange good practice in public sector context.

Emerging Leaders 2022: Real-time Economy in Public Sector

Past Programme Leaders

2015 awarded Future Leaders were Mr. Lourino Chemane from Mozambique and Ms. Daiva Chetcuti-Kirkilaitè from Lithuania.

ICA Future Leaders: