Civic Punks

Ukraine has become one of the most interesting governments in the world to watch when it comes to AI.

In this episode of Civic Punks, I sit down with Roman Kyslyi, Chief AI Officer at Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, to dig into where Ukraine is going next.

We get deep into AI sovereignty, a topic Roman has been thinking about for years. What does it actually mean for a country to be sovereign in the age of AI? And how does that equation change as we move from chatbots toward AI agents that can actually take action on our behalf?

We also unpack what Ukraine is building with Diia.AI, why Ukraine has emerged as a frontrunner in agentic government, and Roman’s bigger vision for how AI could reshape the relationship between citizens and the state.

It’s a fascinating conversation about sovereignty, infrastructure, agents, and what the next generation of digital government might actually look like.

Roman also runs a Ukrainian podcast all about AI. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/@aihouse_ukraine

If you enjoy the conversation, share it with someone who should hear it, and make sure to like, follow, and subscribe for more Civic Punks.

Last week, I shared my conversation with Victoria Itskovych, CIO for the City of Kyiv, about how Kyiv has continued to build and adapt under some pretty extraordinary circumstances.

Six Weeks Under Siege

Denys Nazarenko helped make that conversation happen. He’s a senior advisor to Victoria, and after we finished the interview, Denys and I wandered down to a nearby park to debrief.

What followed was a more informal conversation about some of the things sitting underneath Kyiv’s story: the relationship between the city and Ukraine’s national government, what good collaboration between different levels of government can actually look like, and why Kyiv has been able to make some of this work.

I’d recommend listening to the conversation with Victoria first. But if that one leaves you wanting to dig a little deeper, think of this as the after-hours addendum.

What changes when national and local governments see each other as partners rather than obstacles?

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.