S2 Ep. 7 Robyn Scott – Enabling an Ecosystem of Civil Servants in the Age of Platforms

Boundaryless Conversations Podcast

Today we’re talking to Robyn Scott, co-founder and CEO of Apolitical, a global learning network for public servants. The Apolitical Academy, Apolitical’s non-profit arm, helps young and traditionally excluded people run for political office.

Previously, Robyn co-founded OneLeap, an executive education company, and two southern African non-profits teaching coding and entrepreneurial skills to vulnerable youth, women, and prisoners. She has written a critically acclaimed memoir about growing up in Botswana. She has also worked for the Financial Times. She is an ambassador for the Access to Medicine Index, an advisor to the Responsible Mining Index, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She has a BSc in Bioinformatics from Auckland University and a Masters in Bioscience Enterprise from Cambridge University.

The team at Apolitical works passionately towards “fixing” the Democracy Flywheel on three levels: making politics a credible and trustworthy path, making the narrative around governments and civil servants one of talent and pride rather than “necessary evil”, and reviving interest among citizens in a democracy based on free-flowing and accurate information, where democracy is not “traded in” in return of quick fixes.

In our conversation, we talk about how Apolitical is working to facilitate peer learning among civil servants, creating a go-to marketplace for new ideas and innovations. Beyond that, we also explore emerging aggregation possibilities in the space of government platforms such as the potential to aggregate private sector suppliers to let the best emerge across the space.

We also talk about current tensions between the imagined “global village”, a trend of fragmentation and localism, and the fact that we won’t find all solutions in any of these extremes.

A very thought-worthy conversation about a sector that arguably has to yet reap all the benefits in a platforms and ecosystems world.

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication: https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast-S2E7-Robyn-Scott

To find out more about Robyn’s work:

> Website: https://apolitical.co/

> LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robynscott

> Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobynScott

Other references and mentions:

> McKinsey Center for Government (MCG), Government productivity: Unlocking the $3.5 trillion opportunity: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/the-opportunity-in-government-productivity#

> Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us about the Relationship Between Parents and Children, 2016: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gardener-Carpenter-Development-Relationship-Children/dp/0374229708

> The Apolitical Academy https://www.apolitical.academy/

> Twitter: https://twitter.com/apoliticalco

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music

Recorded on 15 December 2020.