GC INNOVEX GC 2023

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GC INNOVEX GC 2023

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In a rapidly changing world, employees in the public service of Canada face mounting pressures to innovate to meet the needs and expectations of the citizens it serves. Governments around the globe are also experiencing similar pressures, which influence each stage of the innovation process from ideation through to implementation.  

The 2023 GC INNOVEX GC conference will focus on breaking down barriers to innovation by encouraging collaboration and promoting the advantages of collective efforts when exchanging knowledge, ideas and practices.

Participants will learn about new best practices, practical applications and proven methods of driving innovation in public sector programs, policies and processes. 

Webcast registration

Agenda

Opening Remarks – 12:30 pm – 12:40 pm

• Kyle Burns, Director General, Public Sector Innovation, Innovation and Skills Development Branch, Canada School of Public Service

Welcoming Remarks – 12:40 pm – 12:45 pm

• Vanessa Vermette, Vice-President, Innovation and Skills Development Branch, Canada School of Public Service

Opening Plenary - Innovation in Government: Myths and Reality - 12:45 pm – 2:00 pm

• Speaker – Larry Smith, Founder and Senior Researcher, The Problem Lab, University of Waterloo
• Moderator - Kyle Burns, Director General, Public Sector Innovation, Innovation and Skills Development Branch, Canada School of Public Service

Following his most recent research into government innovation practitioners, Prof. Larry Smith draws attention to the myths concerning innovation in the public service and describes the actual reality. With a lifetime of first-hand knowledge and lived experience, Prof. Larry Smith will walk us through the history of innovation and how a new lens may be needed for successful public sector innovators and how indeed this lens can be an innovation in and of itself.

Larry Smith is an adjunct associate professor of economics at the University of Waterloo and a recipient of the University of Waterloo’s Distinguished Teacher Award. During his longstanding tenure, Smith has taught and counselled more than 23,000 students on the subject of their careers, representing more than 10 percent of UW’s alumni. Smith has worked with more than 500 teams of student entrepreneurs, advising them as they have created companies of significant size and success across industries as broad reaching as communications, software, robotics, entertainment, design and real estate. Smith is also president of Essential Economics Corporation, an economic consulting practice that serves a wide range of public and private clients. Most recently he has conducted extensive research on public sector innovation and worked collaboratively with the Canada School of Public Service to develop an innovation framework. Finally, “Why You Will Fail to have a Great Career,” his TEDx Talk based on his experience counselling students, has been viewed by over six million people.

Workshop Sessions

Workshop 1 - Digital Academy, AI-Driven Ideation – 2:20 pm – 3:10 pm

• Kent Aitken, Director, Digital Learning Products, Canada School of Public Service
• Eliane Dorval, Senior Learning Designer, Canada School of Public Service

In response to an innovation problem statement, participants will experiment with using Gen AI effectively and responsibly for brainstorming and ideation within the Government of Canada context. As part of this, participants will:

Get an overview of the design process and ideation specifically

Create, then critically review, Gen AI outputs for brainstorming and ideation

Share observations around the challenges and concerns outlined in the Guide on the Use of Generative AI

Identify steps to take in a real-life comparable scenario to responsibly use Gen AI in a public sector context

Workshop 2 - Innovation Ecosystem Workshop - 2:20 pm – 3:10 pm

• Madina Ibragimova, Analyst, Canada School of Public Service
• Thomas Kearney, Free Agent, Digital Community Management, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Join us for the “Innovation Ecosystem Workshop," where you will enhance your collective awareness about innovation in policy, processes, and programs.

We will share the GC Data Ecosystem experience and then engage in brainstorming about innovation within the GC. In this session you will learn about the essential tools to create visualizations and add your knowledge to the collective. After the session you will have the opportunity to join with your peers and continue the work.

Closing Plenary - If You Build It, They Will Come - 3:15 pm – 4:00 pm

• Speaker - Dr. Sydney Heimbrock, Chief Industry Advisor for Government, Qualtrics 
• Moderator – Vanessa Vermette, Vice-President, Innovation and Skills Development Branch, Canada School of Public Service

Sydney Heimbrock knows about obstacles in public sector innovation. Beginning with her work to transform Soviet era bureaucracies after the fall of the Berlin wall to writing and being responsible for the delivery of the President’s Management Agenda under the Bush and Obama administrations that lead the genesis of the Innovation Lab within the Office of People Management (OPM), Sydney will share the keys she has uncovered to deliver true innovation in the public sector. 

In her current capacity as Chief Industry Advisor for Government with Qualtrics, Sydney is working constantly with governments around the world to ensure that industry and government are innovating together. In this talk, Sydney will discuss strategies she has used to overcome obstacles and how they continue to apply in a rapidly changing world. 

As a founding Executive Director of the Innovation Lab at OPM, Dr. Sydney Heimbrock helped spread the power of human centered design across the Federal workforce through education, training and project-based learning. Serving as the Federal government's Chief Learning Officer, led government-wide Strategic Human Capital Management initiatives under the President's Management Agenda, and helped developing countries build the democratic institutions that provide social safety nets and fuel labor market growth.  

As the Chief Industry Advisor for Government at Qualtrics, Dr. Sydney Heimbrock works at the nexus of customer experience, human capital and process improvement to drive organizational transformation. She led international labor market policy transformation initiatives for the US Department of Labor’s International Labor Affairs Bureau, published original research on job training policies, and served as a senior executive in the US Office of Personnel Management.  Prior to joining Qualtrics, she helped Deloitte build human-centered design capabilities into its offerings for governments. She holds degrees from London School of Economics, Stanford University, Syracuse University and Miami University.