Organisations may also benefit from investing in low-code and no-code platforms that enable employees with minimal, or non-existent, coding skills to work with data easily. For instance, the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs in the USA used Microsoft Power Pages to rapidly build and deploy six online portals that are used for helping citizens apply for financial assistance, supporting local municipalities with licencing, fire code enforcement, budget reporting, and much more. “These environments allow a much broader cross-section of public sector staff to interrogate and investigate data themselves, rather than waiting for specialists who are in high demand,” says Heise. “These technologies can help to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of delivery, enable more personalised and responsive services, and support more sustainable and innovative solutions.” Microsoft technology can also empower governments to overcome one of their biggest challenges when developing digital services: protecting citizens’ data. Working with Microsoft gives governments access to a “unique global cybersecurity periphery” informed by 65 trillion security signals daily and operated by over 8,500 security experts. In 2022 alone, Microsoft’s experts and technology protected customers’ digital assets by blocking more than 70 billion email and identity threats, 2,000 distributed denialof-service attacks, and preventing over 900 password attacks per second. For example, Microsoft's experts and technology empowered the Albanian National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI) to rapidly halt a double-pronged nation state attack on the Government of Albania before it caused widespread damage. This enabled AKSHI to bring back 1,118 e-services in just three days. Now, it has 24/7 automated monitoring, detection and response capabilities to safeguard the government from future cyberattacks. “As the world’s largest security provider, Microsoft prides itself as being the global cyber defender of our customers’ digital ecosystems, protecting them from nation state-sponsored attacks and cybercriminals alike,” says Heise. “We continue to innovate to stay ahead of cybercriminals and over the next five years, we will invest over $20 billion in AI-based security solutions, such as Security Copilot .” Currently in the pilot phase, Security Copilot leverages generative AI and insights from Microsoft Sentinel, Defender and Intune to detect hidden threat patterns, harden defences and expedite incident response. “It will allow public sector customers to synthesise data from multiple sources into clear, actionable insights, surface threats early, triage signals at machine speed and get predictive guidance to help them thwart an attacker’s next move,” says Heise. “This will enable them to respond to incidents within minutes instead of hours or days.” Security Copilot will help to reduce the cybersecurity talent gap too. “The demand for skilled defenders vastly exceeds the supply, especially in public sector environments where organisations are competing for talent against better paying private sector companies,” says Heise. “We can help our public sector customers make the most impact and build their skills with step-by-step instructions for mitigating risks.” While technology is a pivotal part of any digital transformation, public sector organisations must go beyond simply making technical changes to ensure their new services are accessible to all. “Inclusive design and technology choices, such as web pages that work with screen readers and captions on videos, are a baseline that must become the norm for governments building digital services,” says Heise. Governments must also implement policies and workforce training to promote accessibility and make it easy for underserved populations to use digital services. “Governments recognise the importance of connectivity and devices, but they also need to build technologies that work well regardless of bandwidth and device speed,” says Heise. “Plus, they must tell citizens what services exist and how to access them. “Success is based on more than just the technology. It requires a clear vision, collaboration, buy-in at all levels, and a modern approach to IT. When we bring that together, digital transformation doesn’t just change the technology; it changes the way we work for the better.” 148 FEATURE “ Digital transformation doesn’t just change the technology; it changes the way we work for the better”
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