Who we are

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  David Durant

  Co-organiser

  David is a long-time supporter of the government technology and transformation communities, starting with National Hack the Government Day and Young Rewired State back in 2009.

  Since then he has worked for mySociety, the Greater London Authority, HackIT (Hackney Council digital team) and most notably spent five years working for the Government Digital Service.

  David has been on the committee for GovCamp, the UK’s largest government-focused unconference, for several years, focusing on volunteer management.

  His main hopes for TransformGov Talks are (1) to ensure there is a good mix of future proposals and examples of real-world transformative delivery and (2) to reinvigorate the in-person government transformation community, which he feels has been lacking since the pandemic.

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  Gavin Freeguard

  Co-organiser

  Gavin has spent most of the last decade thinking about how better use of data and digital could help make government work better for the people it serves.

  A freelancer, he was previously programme director at the Institute for Government (where he is still an associate), and is policy associate at Connected by Data, special adviser at the Open Data Institute and member of the Public Digital network.

  He has also done work for organisations including mySociety, Full Fact, the Ada Lovelace Institute and Apolitical, and in previous lives worked for the Labour Party, the Media Standards Trust and the Orwell Prize.

  He is also a member of several advisory groups to government around data and information and the steering group of the Open Government Network. He tries to make data fun through the Data Bites event series and the ODI’s occasional data gameshow, the Data Game.

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  Derek Alton

  Co-organiser

  Derek is passionate about making government work better for people and the planet.

  He has spent the last 15 years exploring this work from different angles, both inside and alongside government. After studying public sector innovation in academia,

  Derek spent 6 years at the heart of digital transformation work for the Government of Canada. Through this work, he became connected to global communities like OneTeamGov and got hooked.

  In 2022, he moved to the UK to do this work full-time as Community Insights Lead at Apolitical, connecting public servants around the world with innovative ideas and practices to improve government.

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  Jeffrey Allen

  Co-organiser

  Jeff works with the User-Centred Policy Design team at the UK Ministry of Justice to introduce Human-Centred Design principles to policy making, from ethnographic research to rapid prototyping and co-creating solutions with service users and delivery staff.

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• 

  Vijay Luthra

  Co-organiser

  JVijay is a 20 year practitioner in government and public service reform, working at the intersection of strategy, transformation and delivery supporting leaders involved in driving public services reform. Prior to joining the Civil Service he was a roadie.

  He is the founder of Ceva, a challenger consultancy working with central and local government, the NHS, defence and education on complex change. More recently in his career he worked at PwC, PA Consulting and Capita and with a number of tech start-ups. He has been involved in a range of large-scale reform efforts, including health system transformation internationally as well as national level transformation initiatives in defence, education and national security.

  Vijay has also served as a councillor, school governor and NHS Non-Executive Director and is a volunteer advisor to Kidney Research UK and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.

  Vijay is drawn to TransformGov Talks as a way of contributing to a thoughtful, practitioner-led space. He is particularly interested in learning from others about what really helps transformation stick in government and public services. He is interested in culture, capability, leadership and the realities of delivery rather than just the theory and in creating a space where honest stories are shared, orthodoxy is challenged and people working on change in government can learn from each other in an environment of psychological safety.

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