Agile, efficient, effective & citizen centricSemantic decisions for improving government

Geert Rensen Managing Director Marketing & Strategy

Be Informed provides governments with a semantically enabled platform for running their business• An infrastructure for managing and running semantic models:• manage knowledge (laws, regulations) separate from applications and processes;• fully automated decisions and decision support;• context driven information, advise and applications;• sharing semantics throughout the government;

• Knowledge is recorded in an ontology which is enriched with business rules:• ontology, rules, content, context

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All functions use the same ontology:

• search;• decisions;• processes;• applications;• forms;• files;• services;• ...

Applications

From e-government to connected governance

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The core task of government is governance. ‘the job of regulating society’

E-government is about improving the work of all of these branches of government, not just public administration in the narrow sense.

Issues with regulating societyMore and more fine grained decisions, laws & legislation

• growing complexity of society

• growing risk aversity society

• speed & impact of change

• mass individualisation

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Case Study: Immigration and Naturalisation service

• irreducible complexity of society

• growing risk aversity society

• speed & impact of change

• mass individualisation

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Separate the know from the flow

Manage the know

Automate operational decisions & support decision

making in operational processes

Issues with regulating society Finding your needle in their haystack

• red tape / large number of rules

• administrative burden

• gap citizen and government

• lack of transparancy

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Case study: Modernisation of environmental licensingOne nationwide solution for all permits

• red tape / large number of rules

• administrative burden

• gap citizen and government

• lack of transparancy

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Provide personalised contex-driven

information, advice & services

Develop shared context ontology

semantic standards

Knowledge as a service One application (e-

form)One procedureOne competent

authorityOne decission

600 back offices1600 different applications

42 systems of permits2000 pages of

legislation

Issues with regulating societyMaking effective policy and execute it consequently

• lack of coordination

• misunderstandings

• bureaucracy

• effectiveness of policy

• lack of transparency

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policyexecution &enforcement

Case Study : Modernisation of environmental licensing Improving policy with semantic models

• lack of coordination

• misunderstandings

• bureaucracy

• effectiveness of policy

• lack of transparency

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policyexecution &enforcement

Transparent access to existing policies

Developing, simulating and testing models

Share meaning of both policies and data

Be Informed's solution (on an institutional level)

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Subjective Criteria

Electronic Files Knowledge Services Activities

Receive & register

Gather Information

Evaluate Decide Publish decision

Multichannel applications:• front office• internet• telephone• paper

Request for reaction upon:• prolongation• childbirth• annulment• unwanted

Objective Criteria

Subjective Criteria

Risk profiles

Automated decision making

Semi-automated

decision making

Decision support

Decision

Event driven policy enforcement

Configured with semantic models of laws, policies and

information.

For instance: permits, grants, fines, taxes

Be Informed's solution (on an institutional level)

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Subjective Criteria

Electronic Files Knowledge Services Activities

Receive & register

Gather Information

Evaluate Decide Publish decision

Multichannel applications:• front office• internet• telephone• paper

Request for reaction upon:• prolongation• childbirth• annulment• unwanted

Objective Criteria

Subjective Criteria

Risk profiles

Automated decision making

Semi-automated

decision making

Decision support

Decision

Event driven policy enforcement

Configured with semantic models of laws, policies and

information.

For instance: permits, grants, fines, taxes

Towards a semantically enabled government

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Environmentalpolicies

Health & Safety

Customs and Excise

Knowledge servicesDecision services

Domain specific front offices

Authenticregistrations

My government

Dumb case handling systems

Municipalfront offices

Private sectorfront offices

Semantic government infrastructure

Receive & register

Gather Information

Evaluate Decide Publish decision

Multichannel applications:• front office• internet• telephone• paper

Request for reaction upon:• prolongation• childbirth• annulment• unwanted

Objective Criteria

Subjective Criteria

Risk profiles

Automated decision making

Semi-automated

decision making

Decision support

Decision

Event driven policy enforcement

Receive & register

Gather Information

Evaluate Decide Publish decision

Multichannel applications:• front office• internet• telephone• paper

Request for reaction upon:• prolongation• childbirth• annulment• unwanted

Objective Criteria

Subjective Criteria

Risk profiles

Automated decision making

Semi-automated

decision making

Decision support

Decision

Event driven policy enforcement

E-governmentbuilding blocks

Towards a semantically enabled government

In order to:

• really bridge the government – citizens gap;• really facilitate intergovernmental cooperation;• really support the process from policy formulation to implementation

we need semantic models and knowledge services:

• it is necessary that citizens, corporations andgovernments understand each others language:

• within the public domain;• between the public and private domain;• from policy formulation to implementation and evaluation.

• they are supported in finding (given their specific context)the relevant knowledge, rules and information.

We therefore help develop nationwide semantic standards.

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Addressing the challenges

Be Informed helps:

• bridge the gap between government organizations and citizens;

• organizations to adapt to changing laws & legislation (from 9 months to a few days)

• reduce operational costs (with 20% - 80%)

• reduce development costs (10x – 100x) for new systems and solutions;

• reduce errors and improve compliance

• facilitate effective cooperation between both public and private institutions.

• formulate effective policies;

All enabled by semantics !

Am I eligible for legal assistance?

My employer went bankrupt. What now ?

Where do I applyfor this benefit ?

When was this regulation changed ?

How much am Iallowed to earnas a student?

1600organisations

50.000laws &

regulations

10.000’sproducts &

services

1.000.000’sdocument

announcements

Red tape

Bureaucracy

Administrative burden

Inefficient

Costs Lack of coordination

Mistakes

Thank you for your attention!

Architecture model for a semantic government

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context ontology

Taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy

event unification

model

I go …

I am …

Taxonomy

products and services

law and regulations

government

registrations

Environmental permit

Residence permit

Subsidized legal assistance

…

Gen

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l ad

min

istr

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law

act

En

vir

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Lic

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Gen

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rovis

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s B

ill

Tre

aty

for

pro

tecti

on

of

hu

man

rig

hts

&

fun

dam

en

tal

freed

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……

……

……

GBA

BAG

WOZ

BRI

Prefill