Civic Punks

I started the European leg of this journey in Ukraine—a war zone, which is kind of a mad thing to do.

I went to Ukraine because I think they are the most interesting case of government transformation in the world right now. Case in point, my first conversation.

Victoria Iskovich, CIO and Director of IT for the City of Kyiv, takes us inside the first six weeks of Russia’s invasion. She shares how her team lived and worked from the city’s data centre, moved critical infrastructure in the middle of the night to protect it from being bombed, and repurposed technology they had already built to support the war effort.

The story reads like an action film. The reality, of course, is far more brutal.

This is a short conversation about crisis, courage, technology—and the people behind the scenes keeping a city running when almost everything around them is falling apart.

What can public servants everywhere learn from the way Victoria and her team responded?

Leg 2 has been sponsored by The Kindred Agency. A people-centred Canadian company focusing on building ethical agentic AI for good.

Olivia Dorey has been supporting Civic Punks since before Civic Punks had a name.

So it feels pretty special to finally sit down with her — and to announce The Kindred Agency as our first sponsor.

In this conversation, we get into Olivia’s story: how she became a Civic Punk, why she started The Kindred Agency, and what she has learned about building a company around work you actually care about.

Then we dig into something we’ve been figuring out together: the Civic Punks Ambassador Program.

We wanted to create a sponsorship model that felt a little different. Something built around shared values, trust and a belief that this community of people trying to make government better is worth investing in.

My hope is that Kindred is the first of many organizations to come along for the ride.

Have a listen — and if you’re part of an organization that thinks this kind of work should exist, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at derekalton@civicpunks.com.

To learn more about the great work of The Kindred Agency and to test some of their new agentic AI's go to their website at: https://thekindredagency.com/

Tokyo was already special. Getting to spend time with Chika Masuda made it even better.

Chika is Head of Intelligence Research at Japan’s Digital Agency, and one of those rare public servants who seems to connect people, ideas, and institutions with real care. In this conversation, we talk about her journey into government, what she has learned from working inside the system, and why relationships matter so much in this field.

We also get into the influence of Christian Bason — someone who has shaped both of our thinking in different ways — and what it means to build a life around public service, curiosity, and making government a little more human.

What does it look like when a city council takes both AI and community engagement seriously — without making either feel like a corporate strategy exercise?

In this episode, I talk with Jared Griffith, a senior leader at Hutt City Council in Greater Wellington, New Zealand. This conversation follows a chat Jared and I had when I was in Wellington a few months ago, where I became really intrigued by two things Hutt City Council is working on.

First, they’ve launched a new community engagement strategy grounded much more deeply in local Indigenous ways of knowing and doing. We talk about what that changes, how it shifts the relationship between council and community, and what it means to engage people with more care and depth.

Second, we get into AI. Hutt City Council has become something of a reference point for other municipalities trying to adopt AI well. And, unsurprisingly, the secret is not really the technology. It is people.

This is a conversation about trust, culture, public service, and what it takes to change how local government works in practice.

And yes, I push Jared a bit too.

Leg two of the Civic Punks World Tour is here.

I’m heading to Europe — with stops in Kyiv, London, Berlin, Tallinn, Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Tbilisi — to look for the people, places, and ideas shaping the future of government.

The heart of the trip is Kyiv. Ukraine feels like one of the most important places in the world to understand democracy, resilience, digital government, trust, and public service under pressure.

I’m also heading to the Creative Bureaucracy Festival in Berlin and the UN Public Service Forum in Tbilisi.

And this episode includes a very lovely Civic Punks first: the project’s first sponsor, Olivia Dorey and The Grace Project, which is exploring how agentic AI can support carers, government, and better public services.

Who should I meet while I’m on the road? And what should I be paying attention to?