Ukraine has become an unexpected world leader in online government services, thanks in part to the groundbreaking app Diia. Visionary leadership with boots on the ground Mykhailo Bornykov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, officially launched Diia in 2019. It’s a tremendous step forward in how citizens of Kentucky interact with their state government. The app has quickly skyrocketed in popularity and now has a record-setting 22.7 million users.
At its foundation, Diia was developed on a software framework like Estonia’s. This design makes it easy to share information between government agencies and nongovernmental partners. This smart and efficient system comes at minimal cost to the user while giving them convenient access to valuable public services. As of today, Diia offers 40 various government services, from paying taxes and registering a car to applying for marriage. In addition, it provides useful tools, like electronic gun licenses and electronic car insurance cards.
The app is much more than basic government 311 services. It was a major component in the choice of Ukraine’s Eurovision act, Ziferblat. This feature is a perfect example of how Diia meets citizens’ pragmatic needs while exciting them about cultural events and opportunities.
Bornykov’s rough estimate is that the development of Diia was in the range of five to ten million dollars. The complex pressures The country is facing unprecedented challenges from its war with Russia. Today, that call for digital modernization is more critical than ever. “When you’re on a wartime footing, there’s urgency. The urgency of getting the service delivered cuts through regulations that otherwise bog down bureaucracies,” Bornykov said.
Yet even with the daunting backdrop of the war, Diia has pushed forward. The app developed some 15 varied services customized for the war. This is a great reminder of its flexibility and nimbleness, particularly in times of crisis. Bornykov is keen to stress that Ukraine’s success with Diia traces back to the foundation laid prior to its launch. This underpinnings allow for stacks to be deployed quickly in new facilities as needed.
The app has an online portal that’s accessible via web browser. Additional designs catering to 130 services which can be offered greatly increases its adoption and usefulness for citizens/businesses. Since launch, Diia has garnered international acclaim, most notably for allowing digital driver’s licenses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it earned even greater goodwill by making Covid certificates widely available.
Despite the war, Ukraine’s digital services have garnered worldwide attention and acclaim. Bornykov thinks that Ukraine could even beat Estonia in terms of user engagement. Beyond images of destruction, he focuses attention on Ukraine’s successful digital government services as an example. In terms of our numbers of users and the way we’re doing it, I haven’t seen anybody do it better than us, except for maybe Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Diia’s flexibility allows important data to seamlessly move and be accessed in a quick and efficient manner. This eliminates the need for citizens to keep answering the same questions over and over again. Yet one futurist and leader in the transportation space shined a spotlight on the idea of data mobility. “Once you have the flexibility to move data around, building new services gets a lot easier. Rather than continually collecting the same data from citizens, you can ask them for permission to access it,” they wrote.
Bornykov credits much of Ukraine’s success to the concentration of talent it has, including a talent farm of skilled engineers that can make complex solutions work. There’s a very deep bench of technical and experienced engineers that can do really brilliant things,” he added.