Kristo Vaher, CTO of GovStack: States should not reinvent the wheel for digital development

From the beginning of May this year, the Estonian Centre for International Development (ESTDEV) became the  Estonian implementation partner for the GovStack initiative, helping develop its solutions and promoting partnerships and community involvement. 

You were involved in GovStack from quite early on, specifically as one of the author of its original architecture and vision. Could you tell us more about the original idea behind GovStack?

When this idea started circulating here in Estonia in 2020, it spoke to me. I looked at digital countries — at that time, I had already been dealing with it for a few years on the Estonian government’s side — and what the state does with its digital ID, and it isn't rocket science. Generally, we ask for some data set, process it, and transform it into some new form. Since it seemed so simple, like a sequence, I didn't understand why it should be done from scratch every time.

Since we know that the private sector often reuses its own solutions, why can't the state design these components so that we can take them like Lego blocks and put them together? At least for fundamental things like registries, etc. Four things immediately stood out when I thought about the value GovStack would create. One is that we have to have fundamental building blocks. Another thing is that there must be specific requirements for these blocks. This is needed so that blocks that meet specific rules help create what we want to achieve with GovStack, that is, for countries to have stronger international cooperation.

Kristo Vaher

If, for example, registers and data exchange are built from standardised components, countries can better integrate their systems, which ultimately creates good conditions for international cooperation and export for the private sector.

In addition, there should be a so-called marketplace where you can find all these different blocks, and fourthly, a community, which must be a managed, coordinated place where all members can get help and support when needed. These were the four main domains that I started with.

In short, no country wants to or should reinvent the wheel, especially when it comes to standard solutions that could work relatively the same in every country.” Kristo Vaher, CTO of GovStack

How has GovStack progressed in four years? Has it met your expectations?

Progress has been interesting. Meanwhile, as a bystander, I got the impression that the private sector is trying to dominate this initiative by claiming that some solution they built is GovStack.

In the last few weeks, I have realised that this risk has yet to materialise like that. However, the question is how to keep our good experts and boost their motivation to participate in various GovStack working groups. There are few top specialists who contribute purely from their free time.

I think GovStack is now at an interesting moment where we can still implement changes, and I am glad that Estonia - as well as other partners - has shifted into a new gear here. The fact that other similar initiatives have appeared in the meantime shows that we have been on the right track, and thanks to this, many technical experts have been involved in this project to this day.

Although it has its own challenges, GovStack is still ahead of the curve. We can also achieve the original vision of simplifying the public sector’s digital services, and not only in countries that have not done anything in the digital field before — Estonia could apply the GovStack building blocks, too! Fortunately, we have people who think alike, believe in it and are motivated to make it happen.

Just as ‘Truth and Right’ is not Estonian, but is in Estonian, no solution is GovStack alone. It's an ecosystem with many different solutions and specific specifications.” Kristo Vaher

What are the things that need improvement?

A solid focus is important to me. In the meantime, perhaps the focus has become too broad, and too many building blocks have been made. In fact, we would need to have a stronger focus on our key fundamental building blocks to assure a very high quality moving forward and to then give attention to secondary building blocks only as the customer need arises.

Although it is still a work in progress, the updated vision doc from the technology point of view, which I will definitely introduce to the GovStack community, is the same idea — we have the key fundamental building blocks that affect what things are still needed in the future. Right now, in my eyes, they should definitely include digital identity, data exchange, an orchestration solution, and registries. These four things are fundamental, and with these, you can build other systems, like a business register.

From my point of view, it is important to focus on these core blocks, which are the most important parts and GovStack’s so-called health indicator.

Now that you are the CTO, how do you see your role in developing GovStack? What are the first things on your agenda?

One of the first things is to update GovStack's original vision based on the steps already taken today. For me, the vision is the end-all-be-all of any initiative; it must be understood by all its participants.

At the same time, we try to understand where we are now. As an architect who puts things in abstractions, it is important that we get the vision in place. Once we understand where we are today, a road map will emerge, and I will start to lead changes from there to get from today's situation to where we want to be in the future.

In addition, since we already have a few experts, it is important that we are able to involve good people and ensure their motivation without anyone having to work insane overtime. It's also very important to keep this whole architectural community together and enlivened so that everyone involved in GovStack knows each other and feels like a united community. For this, it is probably wise to hold some regular community events.

GovStack is better if we have fundamental building blocks of very high quality and so good that we can build everything better with them.” Kristo Vaher

The last big thing is that these fundamental building block working groups would be working regularly and well-staffed to move this whole initiative forward. For this, more people are definitely needed to carry it even more.

To sum up, what is GovStack, and why do we need it?

For me, GovStack is a unified, understandable, high-quality digital language for collaboration. It allows us to contribute to the world by knowing what language it communicates in, how we can relate to the rest of the world, and how we can provide value.

As a developer, the most difficult thing is looking at a solution and not understanding why it was done that way — why wasn’t another programming language used, etc.? I would like to think about how to make a new component and share it with the community. So that the community can adopt it without anyone heaving to learn exactly how the solution was made. And if a company builds a component that applies to GovStack specifications, then government can integrate it into their digital government with very little effort.

As one of the founding members of the GovStack Initiative, Estonia has contributed to the development of the GovStack brand and its global recognition as a trusted partner. Estonia has helped to establish a community of experts, companies, and volunteers in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry who have contributed expertise and resources to developing GovStack's core components.