CTG UAlbany and College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cyber Security talk with Senior Advisor at the Swedish Ministry of Finance

Jan. 25, 2019

Photos of the presentation

Dr. Magnus Enzell - a Senior Advisor at the Swedish Ministry of Finance, under the Minister for Public Administration Unit for Digital Government – and experts from CTG UAlbany and the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cyber Security exchanged ideas about creating the data ecosystems needed to address the grand challenges facing society. 

Enzell’s focus on data as a strategic resource, open data, and data-driven innovation was the main topic of conversation during a morning presentation at CTG leading up to a 90-minute presentation at Husted Auditorium on the University at Albany’s downtown campus in the afternoon.

“Sweden, like many countries, including the US, is raising critical questions about the data ecosystems required to fully realize the potential of data to help create public value,” said CTG UAlbany Director Theresa Pardo. “Visionaries like Dr. Enzell are critical to our ability, as societies, to identify the most important questions, consider new futures and create capability to create them.”

CTG UAlbany – formerly named the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany – is a research institute that helps with governments around the world transform public services through innovations in management, policy, and technology.

Enzell presented a variety of perspectives and ideas drawing on major initiatives he is responsible for, including, the national open data-portal, the national challenge-platform, Hack for Sweden, Open Government Partnership, PSI-directive and the Data Task Force.  He is currently chairing the Data Task Force in the Government offices, a group commissioned by the National Council for Innovation. 

Enzell has worked at the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Innovation and Enterprise in the field of digital government since 2006, heading initiatives like the first government action plan and strategy for e-government, the creation of the Delegation for e-government, and several other government initiatives for promoting digital government. 

From 2002-2006 Enzell worked at the Agency for Public administration and was responsible for government-commissioned investigations with a specific focus on governance-problems in the Swedish and European public administrations. 

Academically, Enzell has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stockholm University. His dissertation focused on the political and institutional struggles over the legitimate interpretation of the Swedish constitution during a critical period in Swedish political history, in the early 20th century. He also developed and led a major European project involving the development of an innovative platform for sharing Parliamentary information among the European Union Member States.