Fabi is a Governance and Law in Digital Society LLM student.  Below is an interview with him regarding the internship he has started as part of his studies in the programme. You can learn more about why he chose GLDS and what he thinks about the interactive nature of the master In this video.

Tell us about where you are currently interning?

I am currently doing my internship at the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital Affairs in Munich, Germany. Bavaria is one of the 16 partially sovereign states of Germany and has extensive legislative competences. The mere fact that such a ministry exists is already something very unusual, especially in Germany, as only one other state has such a Ministry and only the one in Bavaria is financially independent. The Ministry is in charge of creating a uniform political strategy concerning digitalization in Bavaria. According to its own description, the Ministry sees itself primarily as a think tank to evaluate the best possibilities to integrate new digital technologies into government procedures.

The Ministry moves along two axes; the pragmatic axis and the visionary axis. Along the pragmatic axis, the Ministry first looks at how to digitalize public administration. While the visionary axis considers more general questions of digitalization in society. Within the Ministry, many questions are dealt with such as how to achieve a smart and digital government whose services can also be accessed easily from mobile devices? What strategies exist for e-Government at the municipal level? How can cooperation between digitalization processes on all federal levels be achieved? What are strategies for open government and open data? Furthermore, the Ministry’s departments deal with topics such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, the usage of Blockchain technology, public data management in clouds and platforms, and fundamental questions on digital participation and digital diversity. 

The Ministry is also quite busy with trying to ensure that all citizens can benefit from digitalization. The goal is really to create an administration of the future that can approach citizens in a better and more personal way. In order to do this, the Ministry would like to make the administration of the government more open, transparent and responsible at all levels. This requires thinking about peoples technical skills, digital literacy, and barriers of access to digital technologies. The potential public good of a digitalized government and administration is that it can increase political participation, but on the other hand, the opposite may be true because if it is done wrong, it can reinforce existing marginalization.

How did you find this internship, and how have your first few weeks been?

Previously, I worked for the Bavarian Representation in Brussels and reported to the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital Affairs about numerous EU legislative proposals and action plans in the field of digitalization. This included topics such as a future ePrivacy regulation, a possible Digital Services Act, EU strategies on artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrencies. As such, I had established good contacts with the Ministry for Digital Affairs, and I wondered whether it would be possible to continue this cooperation, but now from inside the actual Ministry (which is located in Munich), and not from Brussels. I started exactly two weeks ago, so I have to admit that I haven’t been around too long and still need to delve deeper into the substance of the internship. However, so far I am very excited about the opportunities I have had and enjoy the variety of topics I work with.

What are your daily tasks?

So far I have had the pleasure of working on pragmatic and visionary issues within the Ministry, which has been a lot of fun, but also a lot of work in terms of familiarizing myself with new topics.  I am currently working on a large paper to deal with the more long term visionary aspects of the Ministry. On a more pragmatic level I also do a lot of small tasks that are delegated to me.

Do you have an idea about what you want to do after your internship?

The internship helped me discover more about working in public administration, which is interesting because working in public service and administration is often perceived as an unexciting job. However, I have actually found it to be quite a nice environment to work in and discover my own strengths and qualities. With that being said, working in public administration does mean that to some extent you need to limit your own ideas more and subscribe or align yourself with the ideas of the minister and Ministry. This environment has thus gotten me to think more about the future and whether I would rather work in an environment where you have the opportunities to change things, to do actual policy-making – even though this means you might have to sacrifice some of your own ideas and convictions – or whether I would rather stay in a critical public sphere, such as foundations and NGOs, where I can work with a somewhat freer conscience, but perhaps be less successful in turning projects into reality.

- Interview by:  Lucas Haitsma, PhD Researcher in Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interested in more information about our Governance and Law in Digital Society LLM programme? You can ask questions directly to the Faculty by filling out our  information request form.