Every year I send around to former students some highlights of this years work. This time I’m posting here! Hoping some of this work is of interest to all of you. Always keen to hear feedback!
1. Continued Growth of the DPI Map
Our DPI Map has become a go-to resource in the field:
- Now used by multiple Multilateral Development Banks, research teams, and the DPI Safeguards assessment process
- Forms the core of our State of DPI 2025 Report, which we formally launch this week
- Maps digital public infrastructure deployments across 210 countries
2. Economics of Digital Public Infrastructure
Diane Coyle (Cambridge University) and I working with Beatriz Vasconcellos, and Sumedha Deshmukh co-authored our report on The Economics of Shared Digital Infrastructure.
This work has led to:
- Sustained engagement with the World Bank, UK Treasury, and the Dominican Republic about how they fund digital infrastructure projects
- Adoption of our methodology by the G20 Digital Economy Working Group
- Potential to unlock billions in funding and reshape spending to be much more effective
This is deep, nerdy policy work – but it has real potential for impact.
3. The Largest Randomized Control Trial on Digital Government Skills?
We’re mid-process running what we believe is the largest randomized control trial on digital-era skills for public servants:
- I trained 10 Brazilian experts on how to deliver our digital government course (DPI662 at HKS, Digital Government at IIPP)
- Those trainers have just finished training a first cohort of ~500 public servants
- We’ll now run some tests to see if this training impacts the effectiveness of this first cohort vis-a-vis a second cohort who will be trained later this year
It’s been an absolute delight collaborating with Christian Schuster (Blavatnik, Oxford), Maria Alexandra Cunha (FGV), and Kim Mikkelsen (Roskilde University) on this work.
Also grateful to UKRI for funding this work!
4. New Case Studies & Publications
We published a lot this year. Some highlights below of what I think might be of interest:
Teaching Case Studies:
These are great if you are teaching a digital government course… All free to download and use! Also just great reads for those interested in learning about what is happening around the world in digital government.
- Scaling Digital Infrastructure in a Siloed State – On the design and financing of the UK Governments Notify project, and a great example of product thinking in government
- The DigiLocker Story: How India is Digitising Its Documents – On the scaling and challenges of building India’s digital credentials project (which puts most countries to shame)
- Building Trust in Sharing Data – How the US Department of Transportation built supply chain resilience through a data trust
- India’s National Urban Governance Platform – An effort to build shared software for 100,000+ cities
Articles & Commentary:
- Lawfare: “Learning From the Legacy of 18F” (with Hillary Hartley) – plus a podcast interview with Kevin Frazier (HKS 2022)
- Tech Policy: “The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack is Via a Commodified Tech Stack” – I’m particularly proud of this piece
- Foreign Policy: “AI’s Efficiency Wars Have Begun” (with Sarosh Nagar, IIPP 2024)
- Lisbon Council: “The Service Gap: Europe’s International Digital Strategy 2025” (with Mike Bracken and Michelle Wronski)
- Tech Policy: “Digital Public Infrastructure is the New Global Tech Bet—But Everyone’s Betting on Something Different” (with Beatriz Vasconcellos, HKS 2021)
We also have a peer-reviewed papers coming out in January, and a few more teed up for later in the year – stay tuned!
5. Talks & Engagement Around the World
Some presentations I’m particularly excited to be invited to give this year included:
- G20 Digital Economy Working Group in South Africa
- IMF Fiscal Forum Japan meeting in Tokyo
- Multiple sessions at the Digital Public Infrastructure Summit in Cape Town, South Africa
- Presentation to the Canadian Senate in Ottawa
- Women in GovTech (hosted by GovStack, a German-Estonian government-funded project)
- FestiBO Bites in Bogotá (thank you Angela María Reyes, HKS 2016!)
6. Advisory Roles & Other Work
- Joined the CTO Advisory for the Coleridge Initiative (where I get to work with Rich Ferguson, HKS 2016)
- Joined the Aim For Scale Technical Panel (which has me crossing paths regularly with Imara Salas, HKS 2021)
- Significant grant renewal with Gates Foundation to continue much of this work
- For COP30, we published A Bottom-Up Approach to Building a Climate Resilience Stack – on the technologies that could underpin climate monitoring and adaptation with Beatriz Vasconcellos (HKS 2021) and Liam Orme (IIPP 2024).
Personal Update: Iceland Adventures
The big personal adventure this year was an 8-day hike through Iceland with my eldest son Alec, my co-founder Luke, and his family. We hiked the Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails back-to-back.
Absolutely stunning landscapes, challenging terrain, and wonderful company. I’ve been lucky to have a life filled with meaningful, challenging journeys, surrounded by great people. I don’t take enough time off, and this was a ton of fun. It was also a powerful reminder of how blessed I am to be able to work and play with people I care about – whether hiking trails or reforming government systems.
Former Students: Alumni Office Hours and Our Digital Government Working Group
Eternal Office Hours: Every year I do about 30-50 calls with former students, sometimes its career advice, sometimes it’s on their new startup (were a LOT of those in 2025), some are collaborations, other times it’s just to catch up. Please feel free to use this link to book in
Digital Government Working group: If you work in the digital government and have something to share (a problem or success) we’d love to host you in our ongoing online seminar with my current researchers and students. For example, Jake Boyd (HKS 2023) presented his work on Open Source Protocols for Elections in December.
Please email me if you have work you want to share!
Hope everyone had a great 2025 and wishing you a successful 2026. The world has never been more in need of good people, working on the right problems, with the best intentions. I hope you are one of them and that our paths get to cross.
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