Innovation inspires and energises, as clearly evident at the Digital Government Demo Day on 12 February at the Fokker Terminal. Innovation projects shared their stories and displayed their results while Mark Vermeer, as Chair of the Innovation Budget Jury, called for less fragmentation and more reuse: “It’s crucial that innovations go beyond the level of individual organisations.”
The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK) hosted its fifth Demo Day, highlighting innovation in digital government. Mark Vermeer, Director of Digital Government at the Ministry, opened the event with an optimistic outlook: “Looking at the new Coalition Agreement through an innovation lens, I see plenty of opportunities. There’s greater focus on innovation and digitalisation; the ambition is high for the Netherlands as a whole and for the government, too. Agility and cost-effectiveness are 2 of the key themes. That can only happen through innovation.”
Collaborating on one of the winning projects?
Scaling up innovation
Vermeer’s approach highlights the importance of allowing innovations room to develop: “Above all, don’t get in their way.” The Ministry’s strategy for promoting innovation in digital government (Dutch) includes the use of ‘scaling-up vouchers’, designed to connect various government bodies and encourage cross-organisational collaboration. The goal is to reduce fragmentation within the system. Vermeer: “With 1,600 government organisations, it’s vital that innovations transcend individual bodies. Authorities should better utilise what’s already available within the ecosystem.”
Turning resistance into opportunity
Many innovations fail because of resistance. However, according to keynote speaker Deborah Nas (Professor and Innovation Expert), sceptics can actually serve as a source of inspiration for your project. “The key is to understand the origin of their resistance. People often experience ‘loss aversion’. They concentrate more on what they might lose than on what they could gain. For example, there’s concern that generative AI might lead people to think less critically. Interestingly, a similar fear emerged with the invention of the printing press: would people still remember things for themselves? Every innovation has pros and cons; it’s about balancing value and resistance,” The lesson according to Nas? “Turn existing drawbacks into your advantage and create value from them.” As she writes in her book Design Things that Make Sense.
Spotlight: Innovation Budget 2025 demos
At the Demo Day, all 14 innovation projects funded by the 2025 Innovation Budget presented their demos and shared their stories. Here are a few highlights:
Fewer citizens in a tight spot because of machine-readable legislation
We’ve all seen instances where laws have unforeseen consequences. But what if we could forecast the true impact of legal changes beforehand? The project ‘Fewer citizens in a tight spot because of machine-readable legislation’ involves the Ministry of BZK and the Association of Dutch Municipalities, which are developing AI tools to clarify how new laws will affect implementation.
The audience got a preview of an AI application that translates legal changes into code. This machine-executable format, along with related legislation, makes it possible to test how changes will play out in practice: you can simulate the law’s implementation using test data. This makes it clear how laws will affect specific cases and the wider population: who might be left worse off? Find out more about this project on GitHub (Dutch).
SLIM: Local Impact for Multilevel Players
New-West in Amsterdam and Heerlen Noord: 2 neighbourhoods where the National Liveability and Safety Programme is investing extra to give residents and businesses more opportunities. Local councils are working with numerous partner organisations. A key question: how can we prevent the invested money from leaving the area immediately? For example, when an event hires a caterer from outside the neighbourhood, or subsidies go to external parties. Encouraging local procurement boosts economic resilience, as well as confidence, social cohesion, and community engagement. When that money is spent with another local business, the impact is even greater.
SLIM is therefore establishing an infrastructure for a local payment system to increase visibility for local initiatives, ease procurement, and keep more money circulating within the neighbourhood. This project provides support, but more importantly, it offers a structure that enables people to support themselves and each other sustainably. Amsterdam is the first to trial this and will share its experiences. Explore the project here (Dutch).
BronConnect
European initiatives such as the Single Digital Gateway and eIDAS enable citizens and entrepreneurs to access digital government services easily across the EU. The main idea is that individuals (citizens/entrepreneurs) control how their personal data is shared. Dutch authorities must make this data digitally accessible to residents and other governments.
The Association of Netherlands Municipalities, along with the municipalities of Rijswijk and Rotterdam, is developing a secure and reliable solution for data sharing by local councils. It’s a standardised approach, so councils don’t need to implement a separate solution for each channel. With uniform data access, European requirements are no longer addressed piecemeal, but the data source itself is central. Existing standards and functionality are reused. The demo showed how a resident can easily retrieve their digital birth certificate from the Rijswijk Council, store it in their digital wallet, and share it with other European government bodies.
Would you like to collaborate?
If your organisation is interested in collaborating on one of the winning projects, the Innovation Budget team would be happy to facilitate contact with the initiators. Please reach out to innovatiebudget@ictu.nl.
