DCI - Standards in action challenge: Call for submissions

Despite broad agreement that interoperability standards are essential for seamless cross-sector data exchange, adoption remains low, particularly in social services delivery. Many times, the need to get ‘projects’ kicked off and completed quickly, the lack of ecosystem thinking, of long-term planning and awareness on the benefits and rework costs of implementing standards leads to development of systems which are not based on any standards. In other cases, it is the lack of awareness that such standards even exist that limits their uptake.

The Digital Convergence Initiative (DCI) has developed interoperability standards for common processes, data models, and APIs, to enable systems across programs and sectors to exchange information efficiently and reliably. But without robust, data-driven evidence, DCI has found that technical leaders often struggle to make the case for adopting standards, which work as an invisible layer behind the scenes.

To close these knowledge gaps and accelerate uptake of interoperability standards in social services delivery, DCI is launching a global Standards in Action Challenge to crowdsource real-world case studies from countries at all levels of digital maturity,  on successful standards based interoperability experiences, lessons from non-adoption of standards, and examples of DCI standards adoption.