Let’s Chat: Building Adaptive, Citizen‑Centric Innovation in Government

In this interview, Christina explains that innovation in government must balance both use‑case needs and foundational investments. Leaders should look to business plans, societal trends, organizational appetite, and resource constraints to determine where innovation can have the greatest impact.

She highlights that government is not yet leveraging real‑time data effectively, despite having vast untapped datasets. Unlocking, combining, and transforming these datasets into actionable insights will be a major opportunity for future decision‑making.

Effective data sharing in Alberta depends on shared taxonomies, clear definitions, and understanding the true limitations of datasets. Using examples like the provincial death registry, she stresses that knowing what data can and cannot tell you is essential to applying it responsibly.

Success for proactive government services goes beyond efficiency—it requires anticipating evolving citizen expectations, planning years ahead, and maintaining public trust by moving at a pace citizens are comfortable with.

Finally, she emphasizes that leaders must create psychologically safe environments where teams can experiment, fail, and learn without punishment. Innovation requires modeling curiosity, reducing rigid structures, encouraging open conversations, and ensuring that failure is recognized as part of meaningful progress.