Welcome to GovTech 2025

With great anticipation and a deep sense of purpose, I welcome you to the 16th edition of South Africa’s flagship ICT stakeholder platform—GovTech 2025. This year, we gather in the vibrant coastal city of Durban at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli ICC, united under a bold and future-oriented theme:

“One Data, One Citizen, One Citizen Service Journey – Digital Transformation.”

In 2024, we made the deliberate choice to pause GovTech—an important decision to ensure that its return delivers enhanced value for all stakeholders, from public servants and policymakers to entrepreneurs and global technology leaders. This intermission allowed us to recalibrate GovTech around national planning cycles and amplify cross-sector collaboration—laying the foundation for strategic alignment, innovation, and measurable impact.

Now, with renewed vision, GovTech 2025 marks more than a return—it signals a reinvention. No longer just an annual event, it is now transitioning into year-long national programme—a driver of innovation with tangible outcomes, policy dialogue and inclusive progress. Our revised vision captures this evolution:

“An ICT thought leadership platform driving collaboration, innovation and solutions for a digitally transformed, citizen-centric government.”

GovTech 2025 focuses on four pillars:

• Policy advocacy
• Innovation scale-up from GovTech showcases
• Skills development for all relevant stakeholders
• Inclusive platform building with youth and SMMEs

GovTech 2025 is the 16^th edition of South Africa’s world-class platform for private and public sector ICT industry, other industries ICT stakeholders and relevant governance and citizens stakeholder engagements. The vision has been revised to being ”An ICT thought leadership platform driving collaboration, innovation, and solutions for a digitally transformed, citizen-centric government”.  

This year the  conference seeks to focus  not only on hosting a great event as we always do without outcomes. The conference therefore seeks to ensure pivoting from GovTech the event to GovTech the programme, making the conference a strategic resource for SITA and the public service. The focus of the conference will also be on delivering tangible outcomes and not just having discussions about various topics.