Ministries and other central executive bodies can again submit applications to GovTech Lab Ukraine — a program that connects government agencies with startups and IT companies to develop digital solutions to specific bureaucratic problems. The project is implemented by the Global Government Technology Centre Kyiv (GGTC) with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the World Economic Forum, and the Swiss EGAP program through the Eastern Europe Foundation.
How it actually works
The program's logic is inverted compared to typical government procurement: the state doesn't buy a ready-made product; instead, the state formulates a problem — and tech companies propose solutions themselves. A government agency team describes what service or process needs improvement, after which an independent advisory board selects three challenges to participate in the program.
Next comes an open competition for startups. The most promising solutions are tested in a real environment at the program's expense: to verify whether the idea actually works, collect feedback, and make changes before implementation.
«Government agencies formulate a request, clearly describing what service or process needs improvement»
— GGTC Kyiv, GovTech Lab program description
What the first cycle showed
In the previous selection round, government bodies submitted 21 challenges — and only three passed. This is not a failure: the independent advisory board deliberately filtered out vague or unrealistic requests. For government agencies accustomed to receiving budgets for any formulation, the very fact of rejection is already institutional learning.
The three selected challenges from the first cycle concerned urban planning, legal aid, and tourism. Startups — Ukrainian and international — developed solutions jointly with the respective agencies.
Context: why this is not just another «digital pilot»
GGTC in Kyiv is the world's second GovTech center after Berlin and the 21st Fourth Industrial Revolution Center in the World Economic Forum network. This means not just prestige, but also access to a global network of GovTech practices and comparative data from other countries.
- Funding — the Swiss government's EGAP program
- Solution testing — at program expense, not state budget
- Selection criteria — independent board, not the relevant ministry
In parallel, the program has already announced a separate competition for series A+ startups — it will run until October 28, 2025, with winners announced on November 19.
If in the new round government agencies again submit two dozen challenges and the majority again fails the selection — this will indicate not the program's weakness, but that the state has yet to learn to formulate problems more precisely than «needs improvement.»
