Thread by @digiphile

I’m at the historic @WarnerTheater in DC to bear witness what @PowerUSAID invited all Americans to learn about this morning:
How Ukraine is delivering services online in a democracy at war with @USAID.
@karaswisher live now:
usaid.gov/diiaindc
19M Ukrainians using DIAA now

https://twitter.com/powerusaid/status/1661009153807237122

As @karaswisher said, there has a been backpack against disruptive technologies like the Internet, smartphones, & social media.
We now worry about AI.
But all governments must harness these technologies to provide critical info & deliver services to networked publics, everywhere.

Today, @PowerUSAID says delivering services showed how “robust & secure digital public infrastructure” enabled Ukrainians to access services in a war while minimizing corruption.
She says @USAID supported in e-gov in Ukraine since 2016. “
The result: “Government in a smartphone.”

💡📲@PowerUSAID says Ukraine’s DIAA app will be open sourced for the world, to be adapted as digital public infrastructure to other nations.
Ukraine has been working with Estonia.
She announced @USAID will be working with Columbia, Kosovo, & Zambia to build out citizen services.

The USA has always exported democracy, says @FedorovMykhailo: now Ukraine is exporting digitalization with us.
-Since 2019, Ukraine invested in digital government.
-In 2023, 70% all smartphones there have DIAA
-13M Ukrainians use DIAA a digital passport
-13M signatures through it

https://twitter.com/fedorovmykhailo/status/1661010311930064898

The foundation of Ukraine’s digital public infrastructure are Ukrainians themselves — the 🧠 in @OMarkarova’s “brain and grain” — who are building online services for their country. (Kindred spirits @USDS @18F).

Every Ukrainian agency has a chief digital transformation officer.

May 2023: Ukrainians are tracking military movements & sending photos & video of the invading Russian army to the Ukrainian government using a public app, DIAA, which has an eEnemy feature.
500K users on a chatbot.
Crowdsourced networked defense with a public of citizen sensors.

DIAA doesn’t store data, says @FedorovMykhailo: it securely connects the registers of public data that Ukraine’s government moved to the cloud — not on servers at the agency Russia hit with missiles when it invaded. Ukraine issued bug bounties to find & close vulnerabilities.

All of DIAA is open source, logs actions by default, & fully automated.

Estonia has taken the code of DIAA and is now using it, says @FedorovMykhailo, showing the quality of the tech, which other countries are now adapting.

#OSS for the win.

Today’s announcements build on what @PowerUSAID shared with @axios in January: @USAID supported Ukraine building an open source app for digital government & now in making it available to other countries to adapt:
axios.com/2023/01/18/ukr…
Open source/ open society / open democracy

“It would be nice to have an app like this in the USA, but we don’t, & probably never will,” joked @karaswisher.

I hope she’s wrong.
I think she might be.
@POTUS45 left @USDS & @18F in place.

They made a website for getting tests work:

https://twitter.com/digiphile/status/1483515957586927625?s=20

Next up: taxes!

https://twitter.com/digiphile/status/1658231844897169416

There no way to maintain the trust in a public app used by millions daily if it’s not secure, says @PowerUSAID:
Ukraine said they must think about citizen services & anticorruption AND cybersecurity.

Teams of (white hat) hackers test every day.

Security is like electricity.

Now @karaswisher clarifies her meaning: she doesn’t think the USA will ever have a single federal app because of concerns about centralization & putting data in one place, noting risk of hack by a hostile nation. (@USOPM’s devastating compromise shows this isn’t an idle threat.)

In answer to @karaswisher’s concerns about tech, @FedorovMykhailo talked through the ways Ukraine has made Diaa secure — including facial recognition for authentication.
@PowerUSAID noted how geolocation is used for aid.
BTW, #DiaaInDC livestream/archive: youtube.com/live/XAFO5quX0…

I’m glad I came down to the @WarnerTheater to see this event in person instead of watching on YouTube.

Inspiration about how democratic governments are using tech to inform, engage, & deliver has never been more important or timely as authoritarian abuses of tech metastasize.