Government-as-a-Platform Initiative

RegLab

------

Government is often the single largest employer, funder, and influencer in any society. The purpose of this new series is to explore the answer to the question of how to make the shift of government as a provider to government-as-a-platform. by discussing “the government’s role, whereby government entities are no longer mere operational units, but rather centers for planning the future and catalyzing global innovation,” (HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid). This includes what the functions of government could or should be and how to create practical support, models, solutions, programmes, and entities that enable these new roles.

------

The Regulations Lab (Reglab) is a concrete example of how we can enable a shift from government-as-a-provider, regulator, and protector to government-as-a-platform. By platform, we mean how government allows, facilitates, incentivises, and crucially rewards ‘others’ to build on the machinery of government.

Before we focus on how to turn products into a platform, we must first look at the purpose, people, and problems those platforms are aimed towards. This post focuses on how Reglab fits into the ‘problems-as-a-platform’ domain.

So, what problem does a problems-as-a-platform solve?

Silo thinking and doing is a hard-wired into every organisation.

Government launches new products, services, and government-models that all too often are designed with protection in mind.

Corporations launch their products, services, and business-models that are usually designed with speed in mind.

The issue with these two worlds is that they eventually clash and the differing perspectives create friction.

What is needed to assuage that friction is an interface between government and corporate, where both are equal and bound by their pursuit of creating real value for people, society, and country. Today, the vast majority of ‘innovation’ opportunities lie at the interface(s) between the different sectors, and Regulations Lab is one such interface.

An interface that helps to move from the single-minded point-solutions mindset to a ‘joint-solutions’ mindset. An interface that’s the bridge, glue, and broker all in one. An interface that connects the creators of context with the creators of content. More specifically, rather than providing application programming interfaces (APIs), Reglab provides RPIs, regulation programming interfaces.

But, how? How is Reglab a platform for the problems of ministries, corporates, startups, Xlabs, thinktanks, policy units, and other global reglabs? How does it work?

Xlabs meets RegLab:

Xlabs are at the cutting edge of technology, from autonomous mobility to space travel. They often work with technologies that have the potential to create whole new industries. Yet, once they ‘graduate’ from their mothership organisations, they need, as Google’s CEO Larry Page once said, “space places to test without deploying to the whole world”. They need to move from testing the technology in controlled environments, such as factories, hangars, deserts, and wind tunnels to testing in uncertain, volatile, ambiguous, and complex environments.

The Reglab, with its interface with global Xlabs, will offer an opportunity to solve the problem of scaling learning in the real world. It will solve the problem by showing the potential value, and will solve the problem, not of ‘please apply here’ but a ‘golden ticket’ that enables faster movement through the Reglab operating model.

Regulators meets Reglab:

Most regulators have an unfairly bad reputation, and are often seen as a barrier rather than a true co-creator. However, if you look at it from the regulators’ perspective, they don’t want to be the purveyors of ‘no’.

As a platform for local regulators in the UAE, Reglab will offer an opportunity to solve the problems faced by their limited capacity and capabilities. It will allow them to explore the uses of innovative technology and understand the winners and losers of any change. It will also offer an opportunity to solve the problem that every new technology needs multiple regulators, from environmental to business to safety. It allows us to co-create. Rather than ‘of-course-every-one-can-agree-on-the-need-to-co-create’ argument, what these regulators need is practical framework, spaces, and narratives under which to really co-create every step of the way.

Policy units meet Reglab:

There are many policy units and thinktanks operating independently, or funded by corporate interests, whose job it is to bring awareness of how policy changes can, may, or do impact society.  For policy units operating inside big organisations, although motivated by their own commercial interests, most are sophisticated enough to know that the benefits of policy change are not just for them, but also for their competitors and the wider ecosystem. Such benefits democratise access to the new potential value that the policy enables.

The Reglab is a platform for problems of thinktanks and policy units. It is an opportunity to solve the problem of turning their passive role, of writing reports and then advocating and influencing change, into a proactive role. Allowing them to test the policy recommendations that come out of their analysis, at a smaller scale.

Global Reglab meet UAE Reglab:  

There has been a rise of regulation labs in all corners of the world, from Canada to the UK to Singapore, although most of them seem to be focused on fintech rather than the broader landscape of technology-enabled regulation. Regardless of focus area, in almost all cases they operate alone and independently, and are limited by their capacity to execute only a handful of new regulations at any one point in time.

The Reglab is a platform for the problems of other regulations labs. It is an opportunity to turn independent learning into networked learning. It is where we turn the regulations lab from operating as a sudo-startup into a scaleup to keep pace with unprecedented demand. It is where we think of the #globalfirst approach to regulation from day one, and where a startup or entity ‘graduating’ from one regulation lab has faster access to another one in a different global location.

Corporates/Startups meet Reglab:

The world is full of dreamers, those who dare to think and act differently. These dreamers aren’t just inside startups, but also within large organisations. Whilst their vision of the world they seek to create is free, their wings are often clipped, hampered by restrictions in the form of regulation. Countries may tout themselves as being startup nations, but the problem is not starting, it’s scaling. Nations would do well to instead consider themselves as scaleup nations, and regulation is one key enabler of scale.

No matter their size, the Reglab is a platform for the problems of all of these organisations. It addresses how to take their often self-serving single-use cases that have potential benefit for all players in the ecosystem, and create whole new markets and systems.

The GRC:

Finally, the Reglab is creating a Global Reglab Council (GRC). The GRC’s mandate is to help the individual reglabs, x-labs, policy units, and regulators operate as a platform. The goal is to move from local-first thinking to #globalfirst thinking (and doing) from day one.

By breaking through the regulatory barriers, Reglabs sets out to be an instigator for co-creation that will benefit societies and ecosystems on a global scale.

If your organisation is interested in becoming a member, please get in touch at [email protected]