Manuel Kilian is an expert on statecraft and technology, government advisor, author and tech founder. For over ten years, he has explored how governments can successfully use digital technologies and what these developments mean for politics, business and society. As founding Managing Director, he established the Global Government Technology Centre Berlin, a joint initiative of the World Economic Forum and several governments. He also founded GovMind, a European research platform for public sector software, which was acquired in 2024.
Today, Manuel Kilian advises governments on technological developments and is a co-founder of The Agentic State initiative. His keynote speeches focus on digital statecraft, the use of agentic AI in public administration and technological sovereignty. He combines his experience as a government advisor and entrepreneur with international examples and practical approaches to government digitalisation.
An interview with Manuel Kilian
1. What are the core subjects of your keynote speeches?
At their core, my talks are about how states use technology and how technology changes them. Depending on the audience and occasion, the following themes take centre stage:
- Why do states such as Estonia, Singapore or the United Arab Emirates use technology so much more successfully than others?
- Why does so much good technology never reach the state, even when money, will and use cases are there?
- How does agentic AI change the state and its administration if it helps not only to ‚do things right’, but to ‚do the right things’?
- What does the term technological sovereignty really mean, and why should we avoid this buzzword in debates wherever possible?
- Why is the use of technology by the state ultimately a question of trust between citizens and the state?
2. Which audiance or which branch do you reach with your speech?
My talks usually address the following audiences:
- Governments and public administrations that want to put technology to use and need to understand which factors decide between success and failure.
- Companies, associations and startups that work with the state or depend on a state that is able to act, and want to understand how states buy technology and actually use it.
- International organisations, universities and think tanks looking for a new perspective on the intersection of government and technology, beyond the debates around regulation and digital policy.
- Engaged citizens who care about trust in the state, its capacity to act and the future of democratic institutions in times of technological change.
My promise to every audience: no second-hand theory, but concrete examples from the rooms where decisions are made, and comparison across countries.
3. Are you a PREMIUM SPEAKER? Where do you get your insights from?
I have experienced and shaped the intersection of government and technology from four central perspectives. This gives me unique insights.
- I have built technology for the state: with GovMind, Europe’s leading research platform for public-sector software, a company I founded, scaled and sold.
- I have managed it from the government’s side: as an advisor to Germany’s Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation and to the Prime Minister’s Office of the United Arab Emirates.
- I have seen how states around the world handle it: as founding managing director of the Global Government Technology Centre, a joint initiative of the World Economic Forum and a number of governments.
- And I have researched and written about it: as the author of “How Nations Digitise: The Ten Forces of Digital Statecraft” and with an MPhil in Public Policy from the University of Cambridge.
4. What will be in the future? Does «time» play an important role in your work?
Technology is developing ever faster, and we all notice it. Governments, however, often move at an entirely different speed and are built for permanence.
When the time in which technology is developed keeps compressing, but the time governments take to act does not, a gap opens up. We notice it as citizens too, often coupled with a loss of trust in the state.
For the future, it will be crucial to align the pace of technological development with the stability and capacity of states to act. The two depend on each other.
5. Tell us your life motto? What do you want to give your listeners to take with them?
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
We get the future we dare to create for ourselves. That takes a desire to shape things and the will to change them, with a clear goal in mind. Technology plays a key role in this: it is neither good nor bad in itself, but a means to shape our future.