Conclusion

It’s time to launch a Digital Decade. Over the next 10 years, technologists and global leaders should work together to develop and deploy modular, open source, interoperable technology platforms to power the public sector. The UN Secretary-General Data Strategy has already called for realizing the potential of data to inform policy decisions and build stronger communities in a “Decade of Action.” That objective will depend on having high quality digital technology platforms powering public institutions.

The work ahead will be immensely complex and challenging. However, forging an ecosystem of open source solutions for improving governance presents one of the most important opportunities of our time, easily on par with the Green Revolution, mass vaccination, and other great public health interventions of the 20th century in its potential impact. Indeed, fixing broken public institutions may be the only pathways to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The vision for this movement is increasingly clear. However, building such a movement won’t be easy. And, even under the best scenarios, the task of creating modular, open source platforms to power the public sector will lead to a journey, not a destination.