This year, the Dutch community User Needs First is celebrating its 10th anniversary. To commemorate this occasion, it will host an international conference in Amsterdam on April 9, 10, and 11, 2025. The conference will be aimed at professionals dedicated to improving public services.
User Needs First (Gebruiker Centraal in Dutch) is a community located in the Netherlands, by and for professionals committed to an inclusive and accessible government. User Needs First’s ambitions are not limited to the Dutch government. The community would like to reach beyond Dutch borders to exchange knowledge on inclusive and accessible governments internationally. This is why all communication at the conference will be in English.
About the conference
The conference will take place on 10 and 11 April 2025 in The Meervaart in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is a partnership with the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and the International Design in Government community. The pre-conference on 9 April will give those who live and work outside the Netherlands a head start at meeting like-minded professionals.
Programme
The conference will feature inspiring keynote speeches and more than 25 interactive sessions. Keynote speakers include:
- Marianne van den Anker: Ombudsman for the region of Rotterdam.
- Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen: Academic Fellow at United Nations University, Operational Unit for Policy-Driven Electronic Governance.
- Oleg Polovynko: A key advisor to the Mayor of Kyiv and a driving force behind the city’s digital transformation.
- Richard Pope, author of Platformland and part of the founding team at UK Government Digital Service.
More information and registration
For updates on the program, additional information, or to register for the conference, please visit the User Needs First International Conference 2025.
To get a sense of what to expect at the conference, please view the Recap of the International Design in Government conference held in 2019.
