Adrian Motherway is the Government Industry Leader at Microsoft Australia and works with public sector executives across the country to help them achieve their goals through the thoughtful application of transformative technologies.
Adrian believes that technology, used appropriately, has the potential to help people and organisations do and achieve more and can empower cities to be more sustainable, prosperous, and inclusive.
Here’s his five-minute chat with ALGA:
What is some exciting news in your sector that you’d like to share with local government?
Perhaps the two most exciting areas right now are the areas of data and AI (artificial intelligence). We are seeing early adopting government customers moving into these two areas and achieving impressive results. Whether it is in the areas of citizen services bots (not as complicated or as expensive as you might think) or in the use of cloud technology to bring disparate data sources together for the provision of real time insight it’s an exciting time to be working in and with government.
Why do you think collaboration is important in the local government sector?
Collaboration is important at all levels of government but particularly in the area of local government. It’s imperative that scarce resources are used wisely and that local government groups learn from one another. Leveraging the success of others and learning from their success and failures means faster and more efficient time to value.
What do you think are the best outcomes of collaboration?
The best outcomes of collaboration are when we see local government being able to deliver better outcomes for their constituents faster and more efficiently than they could have without collaboration.
Do you see/perceive there are any differences between how metropolitan groups collaborate compared to non-metro areas?
To be honest I haven’t seen a lot of collaboration in either group. It’s not to say it isn’t happening but I haven’t seen any evidence of it. I suspect that there may be even greater advantages for collaboration between non-metro groups to more effectively utilise scarce resources but I’d be interested to learn more.
What are you most looking forward to when coming to Canberra and the Regional Forum in June?
Canberra in June can be a pretty cold place to be but I’m looking forward to hearing from the local government representatives in attendance, it’s through hearing about the challenges first hand that companies like Microsoft and our partners community can help develop solutions to address them.
If you were able to learn one piece of valuable information about local government that would make your job easier, what would that be?
I’d like to understand better the biggest challenges that local government face when considering digital transformation. I’m also keen to understand more about current collaborations and opportunities for more in the future.
Adrian will be presenting in the Regional Showcase session at this year’s Regional Cooperation and Development Forum about the digital tools to support local government collaboration.
Find out more about what will be discussed at the Regional Forum, and register, at this link.