The Ministry of Finance – the Accountant General and the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology are launching a new platform designed to encourage innovation processes in government ministries and bodies. The platform, the national challenges website, was developed according to the model that has already been tried and proven in various countries in the world, such as the challenge.gov website in the USA. The website presents relevant stakeholders in industry, academia and other sectors with key challenges faced by the government ministries, and this in order to encourage the various parties Propose solutions to the challenges presented, identify and propose possible solutions. Based on such solutions, the government ministries will be able to promote moves in the public interest.
This is a preliminary pilot for the launch of the “Government Challenge Arena” platform in the coming months, an innovative and advanced platform saturated with technologies that was developed and formulated in the Government Procurement Administration in the Accountant General’s Division, as part of the toolbox that the Procurement Administration is formulating for the government in order to allow it to be exposed to innovative solutions that will enable it to provide government service to the citizen. The platform encourages partnership between the private and public sectors as a joint solution to challenges for the benefit of the economy and society in Israel.
As part of the pilot, companies and individuals who recognize that they have solutions that can provide an answer to a government challenge, will be able to register on the national challenges website and submit their proposals. After the proposal review process, three companies will be selected for demonstration in each challenge, and in appropriate cases the companies will receive a grant to cover the costs.
At this stage, as a preliminary pilot to the full arena of challenges, a number of challenges have already come to the site, including a challenge on mapping overhead power lines to reduce non-ionizing radiation (Ministry of Environmental Protection); In Israel there are tens of thousands of kilometers of power lines that emit non-ionizing radiation from which safety distances must be maintained, since this radiation has been defined as a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization. The ministry is interested in locating problem areas where the radiation may harm public health and plan the treatment of these lines as part of the challenge , the Ministry of Environmental Protection requests to locate innovative solutions that will enable nationwide mapping of overhead power lines, including locating the location of the power line; identifying the type of voltage; line configuration and displaying the data in the GIS layer.
A challenge also arose regarding technological tools that would assist teachers in providing feedback that promotes learning in writing and speaking in the English language (Ministry of Education). English teachers who wish to provide effective feedback that promotes learning for open-ended assignments, such as essays or bee passages in the English language, have to deal with this large workload, due to The largest number of students in each class. Because of this, many teachers avoid giving multiple assignments or give short feedbacks that do not contribute effectively to the improvement of students’ English. In order to create such an improvement, the challenge invites entrepreneurs and companies to present advanced technological tools that will assist teachers in reducing the time of reading multiple essays and listening to conversations and recordings, and at the same time improve the feedback given to students so that it will lead to the improvement of written and spoken English.
In order to support the promotion of solutions to the challenges, the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology will award grants totaling NIS 450,000 to proposals that will be selected for demonstration in these challenges (about NIS 50,000 per demonstration).
The goal is that in the future at least 20 challenges per year will be brought to the governmental challenge arena, and additional challenges are already being considered, such as: portable renewable energy installations, which can be easily moved without high costs (Israel Lands Authority); Exposure at an early age to the variety of options in the high-tech world and the creation of a choice (Ministry of Education) and more.
The Minister of Finance, Avigdor Lieberman said that “Challenges website is a platform that will connect the challenges of the government ministries with the ideas of companies and private citizens who will respond to them. The challenges we face are constantly changing, therefore we need to come up with creative solutions, cooperate, invest in new ideas and advanced technology. Mrs. The cooperation between the Israeli mind, which proves itself in a variety of arenas and fields around the world, and the Israeli government, will be a force multiplier in promoting the economy and society and will lead to better and more correct solutions to the challenges we face.”
Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Orit Parkash HaCohen: “Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Orit Parkash HaCohen: “After in-depth and comprehensive work, I am proud to present the government challenges initiative developed in partnership by my office with the Accountant General’s Division at the Ministry of Finance. A first platform of its kind that will enable contact between businesses and entrepreneurs for the benefit of helping us in the government – to solve various problems using the Israeli mind and the knowledge of the Israeli high-tech industry. Leading countries in the world, including the USA, have such a platform and now Israel too. The Israeli high-tech industry contributes a lot to the economy and society and now we provide It has another platform for leveraging Israeli technology for the benefit of dealing with social problems.”
The Accountant General at the Ministry of Finance, Yahli Rotenberg: “We welcome the cooperation with the Ministry of Innovation and Science as part of the process of the procurement manager at the Accountant General to implement advanced procurement technologies. These are innovative processes whose purpose is to deal with challenges in a dynamic environment, and will help government ministries to adapt to the challenges that are coming their way .
Director General of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, Hila Hadad Hamelnik: “The National Challenges website is real news, and its effect will be felt at all levels of life in Israel. To bring the innovation to the citizens of the country, you need to bring it to the government. The practices used in government bodies permeate all branches of the Israeli economy, and the ‘National Challenges Site’ is a central tool in promoting innovation processes in government ministries. Through this platform, which encourages entrepreneurship and its implementation in the government, it will be possible to expose the government’s challenges to industry, and to respond to them while harnessing the speed and capabilities of private industry for public government needs and the benefit of the citizen.
“I would especially like to thank the Accountant General’s Division at the Ministry of Finance for the initiative and the fruitful and significant cooperation in promoting this important national project.”