GovTech: Top 100 Influencers and Brands

Regardless of your political leanings and whether you advocate for more or for less government, governments play a central role in organizing and delivering services that citizens cannot do on their own, like building and maintaining infrastructures, organising transportation or offering health services. GovTech is how the nascent ecosystem of startups and tech companies aiming to digitalise government are known. Transforming the public sector to offer new public services and make it more efficient, fast and more transparent and ease the communication between government and its citizens. In the end, the public sector will  bring all their services online, in a more transparent and cost-effective way.
The government is eager to explore new technologies like artificial intelligence, internet of things and blockchain. Startups that solve critical ethical points for government employees will be the beneficiaries and govtech will prove to be one of the biggest market opportunities hiding in plain sight. Governments around the world spend $400 billion on IT and software each year to help improve agility and reduce bureaucracy.

WHAT ARE THE EXPERTS SAYING?

We reached out to some of the top influencers on our list to ask them for their views on GovTech. We spoke to Karen Hunter (#1), Evan Kirstel (#5), Lisa Abeyta (#7) and Marc R. Gagné (#18). Be sure to follow them to stay up to date on the best content and resources on GovTech.

Karen Hunter – Entrepreneur and host of The Karen Hunter Show on SiriusXM
“We live in a nation where people are woefully ignorant to the ways in which our government works—from why we have an electoral college to the duties of each branch of government. When we started the Party of Lincoln app it was to give people an easy way to register to vote, contact their elected officials, and even run for office. We wanted American’s to be empowered and engaged in this political process. The Party of Lincoln app evolved to include political history and civics lessons. Our goal was to make sure there would be no excuse for anyone with a smartphone to not have access to information that will change and impact their lives. We are proud of what we have accomplished in this space. Thank you for acknowledging that the Party of Lincoln is one of the best govtech/civictech on the market.”

Evan Kirstel – Entrepreneur and Social Media Business Strategist at UCStrategies.com

“Technology moves faster than government, and if government wants to take advantage of the all the opportunity and innovation happening in tech, then it needs to find a new middle ground between the Crazy cycles of the market in the tech sector and the sluggish, innovation-stifling ways of traditional government bureaucracy. It’s exiting following innovative startups partnering with thought leaders and change makers in the government to push traditional boundaries. A great time to follow the #Govtech space!“

Lisa Abeyta – Founder and CEO at APPCityLife Inc.
“GovTech is a rapidly expanding industry across the globe that has an engaging, collaborative, inspiring community of individuals within government, nonprofits and private industry who all share the commonality of employing new and existing technologies to improve the lives of citizens. It seems only natural that this global community would gravitate to global networks like Twitter where we can all learn from innovators in other countries, explore ideas, challenge assumptions and establish relationships with others who are also focused on using tech for good to improve government and the communities they serve.“

Marc Gagne – Senior Privacy and Data Advocate, Cyber Intelligence and Director at Gagne Legal
“Hardly any aspect of life remains untouched by digital transformation and AI, with the exception of government. What’s keeping governments from adopting artificial intelligence systems that could improve lives in so many ways? The biggest obstacle at the moment isn’t capability: it’s ethics. With respected influencers like Stephen J. Hawking expressing a fear of AI, democratic nations face a long road to ‘Smart Nation’ status. Ethics aside, the promises of GovTech are truly exciting. They range from better transportation systems and improvements in the environment to great leaps forward in public health initiatives. How about no more brown-outs because AI is managing our utilities? Or imagine easier application processes for government programs with data from tax returns available instantaneously through a federally-managed data center. AI can even help governments analyze the economy more accurately, with new indicators like utility consumption cross-referenced with transportation flow. Until we sort out the ethics of AI in government, one good compromise is the use of “augmented intelligence”, a modified form of AI that exists to help humans, not replace them. According to IBM, who coined the term, this is where the future of GovTech truly lies.“

TOPIC ANALYSIS

MAPPING THE COMMUNITY

We were very interested in seeing which brand and individuals were leading the discussion around GovTech, so we analysed over 390K tweets mentioning the key words: govtech OR “gov.tech” OR “gov tech” OR ((“public services” OR public services OR “transport service” OR transportservice OR “transport services” OR transportservices OR “health service” OR healthservice OR “public sector” OR publicsector OR government) AND (“new tech” OR newtech OR “new technology” OR newtechnology OR “emerging tech” OR emergingtech OR “emerging technology” OR emergingtechnology OR efficiency OR innovation OR “tech firms” OR techfirms OR “technology firms” OR technologyfirms OR “tech companies” OR techcompanies OR “technology companies” OR technologycompanies)) from 7th October – 29th October 2016. We then identified the top 100 most influential brands and individuals leading the discussion on Twitter. What we discovered was a very engaged community, with much discussion between individuals and brands. Below you can see a network map of the online GovTech conversation with the Top 20 influencer Clifford McDowell  at the centre. This map was created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM). Be sure to click on the map to enjoy the full size network diagram in greater detail.

Below you can see another network map created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM) showing the number 1 brand GovTech.com and number 1 individual Karen Hunter at the centre and all the GovTech conversations to and from the influencers in their field. If you are interested in learning more about identifying, managing and engaging with influencers click here to get in touch!

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TOP 100 INDIVIDUALS

We looked at all the individuals engaging on Twitter to bring you a list of the top influencers in GovTech. Below is the top 50, if you want to see who ranks from 50-100 be sure to download the full report by clicking the download button below.

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Rank	Twitter Handle	Name	Company	Influencer Score
1	@karenhunter	Karen Hunter	Karen Hunter Show	100
2	@roomeezon	Imran Hafeez Panhwar	Government of Pakistan	76.51
3	@rgsiii	Robert Shurtleff	IBM	58.26
4	@jeremy_chauvet	Jérémy Chauvet	Capgemini	38.06
5	@evankirstel	Evan Kirstel	USCStrategies.com	28.82
6	@J4Mtambalike	Jumanne Mtambalike	Sahara Ventures	27.63
7	@LisaAbeyta	Lisa Abeyta	App City Life	15.06
8	@JeffSMerritt	Jeff S. Merritt	New York City Government	14.39
9	@patricia1954	Patricia Williams	Pfurmans	13.38
10	@Nuevalor	Amaury Delplanque	Orange	12
11	@TRMRoanokeCity	Timothy Martin	City Of Roanoke	11.48
12	@GovTechNoelle	Noelle Knell	GovTech News	11.45
13	@abhinemani	abhi nemani	City of Sacramento	11.44
14	@Lochoffs	Anne Lochoff	New Zealand Trade and Enterprise	11.16
15	@dustinhaisler	Dustin Haisler	eRepublic	10.2
16	@fcc_cio	David A. Bray	Federal Communications Commision	10.08
17	@cliffordious	Clifford McDowell	Doorda	10.07
18	@OttLegalRebels	Marc R Gagné MAPP	Gagne Legal	9.95
19	@TruthTeamOne	Captain Truth	Small business owner	9.57
20	@MazzucatoM	Mariana Mazzucato	San Francisco City Mayor´s Office	9.21
21	@JeremyMGoldberg	Jeremy M. Goldberg	San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation	9.04
22	@JAMAEsparza	Esparza	Asociacion TIC AAPP	8.94
23	@bgreeves	Bill Greeves	Wake County, NC	8.78
24	@sushthesis	sushil deshmukh		8.75
25	@aalbertjac	Albert (INC)		8.67
26	@RHNilsson	Bob Nilsson	Extreme Networks	8.26
27	@SFCityCIO	Miguel A. Gamiño Jr.	City & County of San Francisco	8.16
28	@digiphile	Alex Howard	SunFoundation	7.91
29	@judy_foote	Hon. Judy Foote	Canadian Minister of Public Services and Procurement	7.66
30	@meganesque	Megan Eskey	Technical Consultant	7.11
31	@PatrickatCarah	Patrick Gallagher	Carahsoft	6.78
32	@AliceLipowicz	Alice Lipowicz	Government IT	6.65
33	@PohJacqueline	Jacqueline Poh	Government of Singapore	5.94
34	@AlexHorovitz	Alex Horovitz	Cloud Watch Inc.	5.8
35	@vrai777	Vishma Rai (ϑ ℛai)	GreenField Technologies Asia	5.8
36	@kristallakis	Krista Canellakis	San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation	5.69
37	@CarlaMays	Carla Mays, MPA	SingularityU	5.67
38	@andyjamesbeale	Andy Beale	UK´s Cabinet Office	5.59
39	@tinholt	Dinand Tinholt	Capgemini	5.54
40	@hrgilman	Hollie Russon Gilman	New America	5.53
41	@stonlyb	Stonly Baptiste	Chicago Booth School Of Business	5.31
42	@kelhutchinson	Kelly Hutchinson	DSI4AU	5.24
43	@Figment_jp	Janet Pech	Microsoft	5.03
44	@bhumharit	LAPITH	Integrated Brand Consulting	4.87
45	@davejroy	David Roy	Infosec	4.75
46	@lenagoh	Lena Goh	Singapore GovTech Agency	4.67
47	@lukefretwell	Luke Fretwell	ProudCity	4.55
48	@VisualPersist	Matt	BBC	4.54
49	@IceyHawt1	Icey Hawt		4.52
50	@Reichental	Jonathan Reichental	City of Palo Alto	4.32

TOP 100 BRANDS

We also looked at all the brands engaging on Twitter to bring you a list of the top brands talking about GovTech. Below is the top 50, if you want to see who ranks from 50-100 be sure to download the report to get the full top 100 list, and see who are most the influential brands in GovTech.

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Rank	Twitter Handle	Name	Influencer Score
1	@govtechnews	Govtech.com	100
2	@govtechZA	GovTechZA	64.14
3	@GCNtech	GCN	59.53
4	@citizenlabco	CitizenLab	52.06
5	@InnovFellows	PIF	51.97
6	@FastCoExist	Co.Exist	44.7
7	@medialab	MIT Media Lab	42.19
8	@DSMeu	DigitalSingleMarket	40.89
9	@Granicus	Granicus, Inc.	39.85
10	@crunchbase	crunchbase	38.81
11	@GovtechFund	Govtech Fund	37.44
12	@nycforward	NYC Tech+Innovation	35.89
13	@StartupSmartnow	StartupSmart	33
14	@DionaMobility	Diona	31.85
15	@bot_innovation	Innovation BOT	31.04
16	@StartUpRealTime	StartUpNews	29.82
17	@State_Scoop	StateScoop	29.22
18	@AppitySnacks	Appity Snacks	28.82
19	@GovTechSG	GovTech (Singapore)	23.19
20	@itknowingness	IT Knowingness	22.38
21	@biconnections	BIconnections	21.73
22	@SFMOCI	#civicinnovation	21.12
23	@A3PStrategies	A3P Strategies	19.22
24	@SAPPublicSector	SAP Public Sector	18.73
25	@GovInsider	GovInsider	18.15
26	@AmsTechCity	Amsterdam Tech City	17.13
27	@Carahsoft	Carahsoft	17.05
28	@made4gov	made4gov	16.15
29	@Engage2Tech	EngageTech	16.03
30	@bcxglobal	Business Connexion	15.07
31	@CityGrows	CityGrows	15.06
32	@someinfosecbot	Some InfoSec Bot	14.9
33	@TheSiliconHill	The Silicon Hill	14.45
34	@winningdigital	Winner Winner	14.39
35	@AfriLabs	AfriLabs	13.87
36	@WomenWorldNews1	Women’s News	12.52
37	@BeeckCenter	Beeck Center	12.39
38	@Results4America	Results for America	12.31
39	@Kofax	Kofax from Lexmark	12.16
40	@D_ThoughtLeader	Design ThoughtLeader	11.92
41	@SetAsideAlert	Set-Aside Alert	11.16
42	@DigitalLA	Digital LA	11.06
43	@KSP_Libs	KSP_Libs	10.87
44	@OpenSourceOrg	OpenSourceInitiative	10.63
45	@opengov20	opengov20	10.18
46	@newurbanmechs	New Urban Mechanics	9.98
47	@BusinessTimes	The Business Times	9.55
48	@TechBuddhaa	Tech Buddhaa	9.49
49	@PublicTech	PublicTechnology	9.49
50	@iConstituent	iConstituent, LLC.	9.28

 

At Onalytica we love building these lists and want to give back to our loyal readers as much as we can. If you’re interested in other topics (such as Virtual Reality, Digital Health, Digital Marketing) be sure to have a gander on our blog or why not propose some topics to us on twitter? We also build some very cool software to manage all of these influencers. Get a free demo today by clicking the button below!

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Disclaimer: As ever with these lists, it must be stressed that the ranking is by no means a definitive measurement of influence, as there is no such thing. The brands and individuals listed are undoubtedly influential when it comes to driving discussion around GovTech.

The PageRank based methodology we use to extract influencers on a particular topic takes into account the number and quality of contextual references that a user receives. These calculations also take into account a user’s relevance (number of tweets on topic) and reach (number of followers). If you want to learn more, please read our article that outlines influencer identification.

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