Public sector · Technology

Translating between public sector and technology.

Independent advisory for companies and startups contributing to the operating system of the future state, and for public institutions that hold the mandate to shape it.

How we work Request a conversation

Approach

Two logics that don't resolve.

Government thinks in decades, technology in weeks. One is accountable, the other experimental. Both face the same question today — how to develop new processes and new ways of thinking, as AI and a broader technological shift change what public institutions and the companies around them are expected to do.

Technology companies and startups want to contribute to the operating system of the future state, without the institutional fluency the work requires. Ministries, agencies, and universities hold the mandate to shape that state, while a generational handover strips institutional knowledge from the building. Between them sits a gap where most projects either stall or quietly fail.

That is where the work happens. We know how decisions actually move through public institutions and what makes technology actually work inside them. That orientation is what we pass to both sides.

Principles

How we work

Responsible change

Public systems can and should change. The question is how. We work from the assumption that modernisation in the public sector is real engineering, not a slogan. That means understanding what a given structure was built to protect, deciding what genuinely needs to move, and bringing change in a form the institution can actually carry.

Translation, in both directions

Government thinks in responsibilities, technology in systems. We translate between them, without either side having to abandon its logic. In practice that means working alongside: on the conversations that set up the work, on the decisions that shape it, and on the implementation that delivers it.

Independent, lean, fast

Independence is a working condition, not a slogan. We hold no equity in technology vendors and operate without exclusive ties, which keeps the advice honest in both directions. The lack of agency overhead has a practical effect: response is fast, and the person who runs the first call is the person doing the work.

What we do

Three areas of work

The work concentrates in three areas. They are where the experience translates most directly into help that is useful.

GovTech market entry

For technology companies and startups entering the European public-sector market. Mapping the landscape, identifying who decides and who blocks, translating your product into a register the institution actually uses, and finding entry points that hold up over time.

Programme and partnership design

For ministries, agencies, and universities building new formats with private partners. Designing the structure of the cooperation and the governance, but also what the work feels like in practice — the interface where people on both sides meet, the technology that carries the work, the shape that makes the format something participants want to be part of, not just attend.

Policy advisory and written work

Written positions, papers, and briefings on digital policy, governance, and regulation. The questions sit at the intersection of technology, institutions, and the people who run them — and increasingly between the generations now overlapping in the public sector, each working with a different relationship to the technology. The writing reflects that.

If your question sits outside these three areas, write anyway.

Lens

A closer look
than usual.

Data, cases and analysis on digital government. Every format in one place, three times a week.

To the Lens
GovTech / Lens Open ↗
Move to bring into focus
Lens brings together data, cases, lessons from failure and policy analysis on digital government. Go to the full Lens.

About

Who's behind this

GovTech.Expert is an independent advisory between public sector and technology. Yannic Plumpe works with companies and startups that want to contribute to the operating system of the future state, and with public institutions that hold the mandate to shape it. The work is translation between two logics that rarely meet on their own — and turning those conversations into something both sides can act on.

Yannic built the Baden-Württemberg site of GovTech Deutschland. At the TUM Think Tank, he launched the GovTech Initiative. As a fellow at the German Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation, he contributed to international digital policy and responsible AI, with participation in the Internet Governance Forum, the AI Action Summit in Paris, and the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development in Geneva. At the European Commission's DG DIGIT, he authored a governance model for Europe's Digital Governance Infrastructure, formally published by the Commission and presented at the Interoperable Europe Academy. He co-founded Public Makers, today one of Europe's largest peer-led initiatives for young people in the public sector.

M.Sc. Politics & Technology, TU Munich. Institut Polytechnique de Paris (2025). Visiting Researcher at Cornell University (2026). Named one of fifteen "Young Leaders in GovTech" by Possible and Handelsblatt (2025). Based in Munich.

A quick conversation, whenever it helps.

Available as a sounding board on questions at the seam of public sector and technology — strategy, market entry, programme design, or just a second opinion. 30 minutes, no commitment beyond the call.

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