2022 US Delegation

At the start of May, the AIIA hosted a sold out 10-day Australian Trade Delegation made up of start-ups, medium and large technology businesses as well as 14 senior government representatives. The delegation visited leading tech company HQs in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, followed by exchanges with government officials in Washington DC. In Washington, we were honoured to have Australian Ambassador Hon Aurthur Sinodinos speak to the delegation at a breakfast and we finished the delegation with a function at the Australian Embassy.

A special thanks to our tremendous hosts for the immense effort and knowledge imparted to the delegates: SAP, Intel, Infosys, Microsoft, Apple, Snowflake, AWS, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Kyndryl, Dataminr, DXC, Adobe, Cisco, Info-Tech and IBM.

AIIA would also like to thank Chris Fechner, CEO of the Digital Transformation Agency who coordinated the government delegates with a record number attending.

What became clear from discussions is that Australia, in many ways, is a leader in digital government. Many large cloud and software companies commented that major developments in their product roadmaps have been driven by the needs of Australian Governments which have in turn been taken up by other clients building out their value proposition.

In other words, the Australian government market is not only a large consumer, but an influencer shaping global software developments.

US digital and data policy makers from US federal and state governments highlighted that Australia is also recognised as a leader in important areas such as data sharing across silos and it’s work on digital identity, just to name two.

Separately, the US officials raised concerns about not building bias into technology products and services (for example through AI adoption) and championed pursuing the stretch goal of proactive personalisation of digital service delivery to citizens over the traditional citizen request model.

Lastly, customer satisfaction and digital equity remain a key focus and measure of the US government.

In these ambitions and areas of focus, Australia is following the same path but at an early stage of the journey. We often heard from government and industry that driving improvements in citizen experience with government is central to a digital first approach.

We also met with recent US federal government chief information officer Suzette Kent, who told us that her focus as the CIO was to be the primary advocate for citizens and working with government agencies to drive this approach.

“With so few opportunities to travel overseas, it was an immense pleasure to travel and combine it with being hosted by some of the leading technology companies in the world, and a range of inspiring and knowledgeable industry colleagues, from within government and industry. Compared to the 2019 AIIA delegation, it was fascinating to see the changes in positioning and advances in technology from the US technology giants, as well as the US’ tech policy approach”
Mark Nicholls, CEO, Information Professionals Group