In 2020, at the height of the pandemic in Brazil, the São Paulo state government launched an innovative initiative: Ideia Gov. The intention was to seek help from the market and society to solve problems that the state power could not cope with, in order to offer better services and increase the efficiency of servicing the population.

The executive branch did not implement the program alone; named two organizations that were needed to achieve positive results: Fapesp (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisado Estado) and Impact Hub, a private initiative organization that works on innovation with entrepreneurs.

The first implemented solutions were designed to help fight the pandemic. One situation, for example, was the difficulty of testing the entire population quickly and cheaply. To do this, Ideia Gov has chosen the national company Safetest, which, in partnership with the Institute of Butantan, has adapted its infrastructure and technologies to produce rapid tests for Covid-19.

Coworking space located on the SC-401 highway, in the Saco Grande area, in Florianopolis, one of the most innovative areas in Brazil — Photo: DIVULGAÇÃO/ND

For Impact Hub Floripa CEO Gabriela Werner, who worked on the implementation of Ideia Gov, this initiative was essential to bring innovation to public administration.

“Governments don’t have much incentive to innovate: civil servants are stable and take great risks if they decide to innovate and make a mistake,” he comments. In addition, the legal framework creates obstacles to testing solutions, despite the fact that Brazil has made significant progress in recent years, for example, with the approval of the legal framework for start-ups in 2021.

This measure allows governments to hire companies faster without having to follow the same bureaucratic procedures as the bidding process. Such partnerships, involving government, private initiatives and research institutions, are needed to increase the flexibility of public administration.

“An alliance between sectors guarantees mutual benefit. Companies and organizations see government as a great ally to scale their solutions. Startups, for example, have technological potential and are changing our attitude towards products and services very quickly,” emphasizes Tatjana Daussen Perfall from the non-governmental organization Vetor Brasil.

“The government is buying a solution to the problem. This is a challenge, and startups and innovative companies help to think about how to solve it,” concludes Werner.

Another alternative to stimulating government innovation is the creation of laboratories. These structures, in addition to collaborating with other sectors, can involve different types of civil servants to form multidisciplinary teams that think about the problem as a whole from different perspectives, using tools such as big data and artificial intelligence.

“In the lab, professionals can collaborate to create solutions through error-prone experimentation and rapid learning. This ensures resource savings and better public policy. It is no longer possible to plan and implement services and policies on a large scale and only then see if it works,” Perfall explains.

State power and private initiative help metropolitan entrepreneurs

A partnership between Florianopolis City Hall, Impact Hub Floripa and Sebrae is helping MEIs (Individual Micro Entrepreneurs) expand their businesses. The Salto Acceleradora program qualifies professionals in several areas including personnel, finance, marketing and business management.

The first class of 132 students participated in the project in 2021 online due to the pandemic, and more than half reported seeing an increase in their average monthly bill after putting the advice of mentors into practice.

The initiative is being developed by Impact Hub Floripa across the country. “Already more than four thousand entrepreneurs are taking the 10-week acceleration program and increasing their income by more than one thousand reais per month during the program and by more than five thousand reais per month after the completion of the project,” Werner explains.

In Florianopolis, a new group of students will take part in the program in 2022. The CEO of Impact Hub Floripa also emphasizes that the mayor’s office has shown real intent to change the quality of life for MEI and says that the government of Florianopolis is a good example when it comes to innovation.

“The government is evolving in a way that has been accelerating the damage in this regard in recent years by thinking about how to make the machine more efficient and innovative, which ultimately produces more social and environmental results and with less investment,” he concludes.

Illustration – SOURCE: Impact Hub Floripa

UFSC laboratory develops health solutions

Universities can make a big difference in achieving a more flexible, closer and more efficient public service for citizens. The Bridge Laboratory at UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina), for example, was established in 2013 to develop the SUS primary health care computerization project.

Since then, the group has implemented several other health and education solutions. One of the proposals that modernized the healthcare sector was a construction monitoring system.

This is an application that helps managers to control infrastructure works financed by the Ministry of Health. The system also has a website for citizens to follow the progress. You can check when the project will be completed, the cost of invested resources and even see images of the place.