GOVIS Events - 2025
Lunchtime forum - Artificial Intelligence in Testing
Mon, 19th May 2025, 12-1pm, G.03, Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 15 Stout Street Wellington 6011 - and online
We are excited to announce our first GOVIS Test Meetup for the year. This session, we are focusing on AI in testing and testing AI in the NZ Public Sector.
The AI hype is a little old now. We are seeing the introduction of production-level uses of AI across Agencies. And the use of AI-based testing tools in Agency test delivery. Probably a good time to take stock of what we are all doing across Government with the use of AI in Testing – and how we Test AI.
So – our next GOVIS Test Professionals Meetup is all about this topic.
We are grateful to have the GCDO team within DIA talk about the Public Service AI work programme, which includes the Public Service AI Assurance Model. Following this, we will have input from agencies that are using AI in Testing and are Testing AI. As well as an open forum discussion on the use of AI in the Government Testing domain.
You can register for the event here.
Our Meetup is both in person and via Teams. There are only limited numbers of in person tickets available, so get in fast to secure your spot. Some catering will be provided to those in person.
Lunchtime forum - Unlock the power of data with the Unified Star Schema
This event took place on Mon, 24th March 2025. You can watch the presentation here on YouTube. Our thanks to Astrato and OSS Group for sharing their event with GOVIS
The USS is an innovative platform-agnostic approach to data modelling, that makes it easier to access all your data products in one place.
Are you a data architect/engineer/scientist/warehouse developer? Are you that person who always finds themselves saying "what about the schema?" Do you wish it was easier for your BI customers to 'self serve'? Do you wonder about how to leverage genAI tools for data analysis? Then you may be interested in this presentation...
The evolution of AI is significantly reshaping the way organisations are looking to utilise data, which brings new data modelling challenges. While many tools offer appealing data visualisation techniques, users can still often face difficulties when seeking broader insights.
The Unified Star Schema (USS) aims to tackle this challenge using an innovative data modelling approach. It's designed to enable seamless access to all data products through a single access point, regardless of technology or platform.
In presentation we learned about:
Options to prepare for the impact of AI assistants: As AI develops, it is vital to enable direct access to data for business stakeholders.
How stakeholders benefit from simplifying data analysis and reporting across various products.
How to reduce the workload associated with building and maintaining complex reports and dashboards.
Speakers:
Francesco Puppini, inventor of the Unified Star Schema and the Puppini Bridge. Published a book about on this topic in 2020 here, that was co-authored with legendary 'father of the data warehouse' Bill Inmon.
Konrad Matheis, COO / CTO of Astrato.
Lunchtime forum - Transforming Government through System Leadership
Fri, 14th February 2025, 12-1pm, G.03, Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 15 Stout Street Wellington 6011 - and online
From GOVIS, in partnership with Silverstripe
It was great to hear from Monica Greenan (DIA - General Manager, Agency Partnerships & Capability, Digital Public Service) about some of the many different areas where the GCDO are active, for example:
Taking steps to further centralise digital procurement.
Collecting insights into NZers' (extensive) use of digital channels.
Rationalising the number of digital identities NZers need to interact with government (e.g. ACC's use of 'My Health Account Workforce') and continuing to progress a 'growing ecosystem of digital identity' under the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Act 2023 (DISTF).
Weighing up the pros and cons of 'sweating' our on-prem IT assets.
Emphasising the impossibility of all agencies getting funding for their digital investment wishlists, and the need for more shared/centralised capabilities (e.g. customer portals, CRMs, case management systems, records management systems, registers...). This is the driver behind the Service Modernisation Roadmap - which highlights the joined-up work that is happening (or ought to happen).
Reminding agencies that we are all responsible for pursing shared solutions - e.g. if you at the point of spending six weeks talking to vendors as part of procurement market investigations, you should also be speaking to other agencies and the GCDO to see whether there might be a way to save money through collaboration.
Advocating with Treasury to make it easier for agencies fund IT investments through opex, not just capex.
Exploring the opportunities presented by Digital Public Infrastructure (imagine if we could achieve theoretical savings of 1% of GDP!)
Lots of AI stuff, including understanding most common agency use cases (e.g. contact center optimisation, CRM enhancements, digital process automation), the high proportion of 'internal use' tools, and the relatively small number that ended up taken through to BAU (15 from 138), for a range of reasons. Also gained some more nuanced understanding of risks and advocating for agencies to proactively publish details of their use of AI (trust through transparency). Finally, there is also an AI Community of Practice, that public servants may request to join.
Here are some key links and resources:
Minister Collins speech: Address to Public Service Leaders | Beehive.govt.nz
Sir Brian Roche speech recording: 2025 New Zealand Economics Forum Day 1
Sir Brian Roche speech transcript: Sir Brian Roche on reorientating the Public Service - Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission
For the AI Community of Practice, email gcdo@dia.govt.nz and ask to join