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GOVERNMENTSTRATEGYEVENT DESIGN

Government service design for Saudi Vision 2030

GovX is a platform by Saudi Arabia to open up the dialogue on digitizing governments. It is a digital and physical platform for stakeholders worldwide to discover, learn, solve, and share.

Ahmad Bilal, Product Design Engineer & ResearcherDesign Consultant · EY
ROLE
Design Consultant
COMPANY
EY · KSA Gov
TYPE
Gov · Vision 2030
YEAR
2020–21
200+government representatives
40+countries
20Kattendees
25+technology exhibits
180+speakers

What those numbers mean A Saudi Vision 2030 programme run with EY. The event drew 20,000 attendees from 40+ countries, with 200+ government representatives and 180+ speakers. My work was the research and the experience design behind it, not the running of the event.

FIG.01ENLARGE ↗ Govˣ 2020 Summit: ‘Humanizing Digital Government’. I produced the event’s strategy & communication decks end-to-end
FIG.01. Govˣ 2020 Summit: ‘Humanizing Digital Government’. I produced the event’s strategy & communication decks end-to-end. // click to enlarge

Summary

As part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 plan, the government launched an annual event to digitize its services and upskill its employees for what future citizens would need. As a consultant on the EY advisory team, I was brought on to help the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hit its goals. My focus was reimagining government services and introducing mandatory tech skills for future government workers.

In this role, I worked on experience and design-strategy and implementation, and was recognized for my technical work. My responsibilities included running research, creating persona and journey maps, and managing and improving cross-platform digital touchpoints.

Over 200 government representatives attended from 40+ countries, with 20,000 attendees in total. There were 25+ tech exhibits and activations, with 180+ speakers. Beyond strategy and implementation, I created communication materials: flyers, a sponsor pitch deck, a sales deck, a packages deck, and internal reporting documents.

Event design research for GovX 2021

After studying competitors, frameworks, and event-design dimensions, we built a methodology to explore the problem space further, and we talked to users to find solutions. We delivered user personas and journey maps to the KSA Gov teams and EY Asia Pacific leadership so they could make decisions.

User segmentation

  • Attendee
  • Speaker
  • Sponsor
FIG.02ENLARGE ↗ Persona: Jamal, a local attendee: goals, needs, experience dimensions, digital competence & personality axes
FIG.02. Persona: Jamal, a local attendee: goals, needs, experience dimensions, digital competence & personality axes. // click to enlarge
FIG.03ENLARGE ↗ Journey map: Chao, an international speaker, across the full event lifecycle: doing, narrative, emotion curve, touchpoints & KPIs
FIG.03. Journey map: Chao, an international speaker, across the full event lifecycle: doing, narrative, emotion curve, touchpoints & KPIs. // click to enlarge

Communication design

Beyond research and strategy, I produced the event's communication design system end to end.

  • Flyers / booklet
  • Sponsor pitch deck
  • Sales deck
  • Packages deck
  • Internal reporting documents (executive deck, speakers deck, steering committee, status report template)
FIG.04ENLARGE ↗ A flagship strategy slide: ‘Business Re-imagination through Digital’: 12 connected ideas bringing the direction to life
FIG.04. A flagship strategy slide: ‘Business Re-imagination through Digital’: 12 connected ideas bringing the direction to life. // click to enlarge

Government work rewards research that survives contact with policy. How I run that sequence is in Research → Product → Code, and my published papers are on the research page.