Digitalisation and bureaucracy dragged Germany down to an embarrassing 49th out of 53 places for The Best & Worst Places for Expats report in 2023. Despite Germany’s career security, people who move here just don’t have the easiest start when trying to settle.
But instead of complaining, I’m writing because I want you to know that hope is on the way!
I visited GovTech Campus Deutschland as part of the GTA – Black Women in Tech, Germany launch. This networking and tech tour event brought together ambitious black female talents who are interested in Germany’s tech scene.
GovTech Campus Deutschland aims to accelerate Germany’s development and application of digital technologies and solutions for the public sector. It connects federal, state and local governments with innovators in the tech scene, civil society, open-source community and applied research.
So what does this mean? It means that although being in Germany can feel like you’re still dealing with AOL dial-up connection in 2004, GovTech Campus Deutschland is aware of it and is trying to change this on a national scale. They are exploring, developing and testing new ideas and solutions so that Germany can finally become the digital-savvy ecosystem that everyone expects it to be.
To be honest, I was feeling skeptical, but our tech tour was hosted by David Steinacker, Head of Ecosystems & Partnerships at GovTech Campus Deutschland. He told us about the approaches and challenges of GovTech’s mission. And as someone who does honestly not have much hope in Germany’s digitalisation, yes, I was asking all the questions!
What’s the timeline for the end-user?
David explained that we are looking at about 5 years until citizens in Germany start to see a real difference. To manage expectations, Germany won’t quite be where European tech pioneers Estonia and Ukraine are but we’ll see progress nonetheless. Uff! That sounds like a long time, doesn’t it?
Why is Germany’s digital innovation so slow?
Germany’s past is preventing it from keeping up with digitalisation’s future. As you likely know, Hitler’s Nazi Party committed genocide based on race. To prevent history repeating itself, Germany will never have a central register that includes data on all citizens again. However, as you can imagine, centralised data is crucial for many digitisation projects. This is why obtaining new documents like passports and driver’s licenses in Germany is, to be frank, a pain. There are very few nationwide end-to-end digital processes and you still need to collect your documents in person. Navigating this and digitalisation is a challenge.
Also, Germany is a very federated state country. It is made up of 16 regional states that all have their own policies. This means that implementing national digital policies is extremely complex, and can, in some cases, be severely delayed by just one state. As you can imagine, this is a huge hindrance for nationwide digitalisation.
What is GovTech Campus Deutschland’s approach?
As an NGO, GovTech is politically neutral and does not have any financial motivation to accelerate public sector technology and digitalisation in Germany. Their approach is three-fold:
1) Connect
GovTech prioritises collaboration, testing and accessibility to innovative technology. This is done through events, training and active community management that inspires digital transformation.
2) Build
GovTech provides the infrastructure for digitalisation. Each project is empowered with specialists including IT service providers, open-source solutions, civil society representatives and renowned research organisations.
3) Scale
Once Germany has finally caught up with digitalisation, GovTech Campus Deutschland certainly doesn’t want it to get left behind again. So each project is approached with a scalability mindset. It is important to ask how these projects can be scaled so that Germany can keep up with the curve.
What’s next for Germany’s digitalisation?
Well, they say patience is a virtue. I’ve been living in Germany for nearly 8 years and whilst the digital struggle is real, I’ve survived. I still can’t believe that after Brexit I had to attach all my documents (and it was a lot) via email to make sure I had everything, and even after I got told everything was there, I still had to print them off to deliver them in person. Let’s hope that these highly inconvenient processes are no longer around in 2030 and that perhaps Germany will jump up a notch in the Expat report.
Alisa Jordan Writes 
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