No matter where you are traveling, you may find yourself in a confusing, crowded, and chaotic airport. But not in Moldova.

When I arrived at Chisinau International Airport, I was immediately struck with how clean it was. At present, the customs and immigration lines move in an orderly fashion, the floors of the baggage claim area are pearly white, and the large advertisements look brand new. A quick Google search told me that more expansion and development are imminent as Moldova continues to connect to Europe and other parts of the world.

When I left the airport, I saw that its mint condition differed drastically with the architecture throughout the capital city. Directly across from my hotel was the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ's Nativity - an enormous, regal building built in 1830 in Neoclassical style. When I stepped inside, it was like stepping back in time. Veiled women were lighting candles and praying in front of grand paintings surrounded by gold. Later while walking to dinner, a third architectural style served as yet another relic from the past: brutalist architecture from the Soviet rule of Moldova.

In one short walk across the city, I saw the city as it is today, representations of its rich history, and what’s to come in the future.

But the intersections of the past, present, and future are not just themes for architecture in Moldova. It was also a recurring theme at our recent local event for the Global Digital Development Forum: Digital Momentum in Moldova: Mobilizing Collective Action for an Inclusive Digital Future.

Palladium brought together stakeholders from civil society, government, and the private sector to discuss the country’s goals for digital transformation, and our guest speakers and attendees reflected on this often throughout the workshop and speeches. We hosted the event to provide a platform for stakeholders to explore how to accelerate digital transformation in a way that upholds democratic values and human rights and mobilises collective action.

In 2023, the country rolled out the Republic of Moldova Digital Transformation Strategy (2023-2030) which focuses on developing an accessible, safe, transparent, and inclusive digital society, economy, and ICT sector. This is in addition to the country’s goal of being viewed as truly a digital nation.

Reflecting on Past Achievements

The government has worked on improving many of the outdated systems of the past, such as how citizens access government social services. Examples of these services include any relevant changes or updates to driver’s licenses, birth registrations, or unemployment allowances.

Officials spoke of turning paper records into electronic ones to make them more accessible and convenient to the public, to reduce paperwork, and to have a more reliable and responsible way of documenting the services people are using and the status of any stagnant claims.

Their desire to make sure people who need these services the most have access to them was at the forefront of this task, exemplified by focus groups where vulnerable groups could propose solutions to make access as easy as possible.

The Present

Digital transformation has a lot of moving parts.

But for Moldova, the present challenge is scaling the e-governance platforms and the progress made towards updating them to the national level.

This requires a focus on cybersecurity risks, as well as inclusive growth. Guest speakers and audience members at our event proposed what factors are needed to ensure that digital transformation efforts are human centered and citizen trust in government is prioritised. The consensus was that if these two things are not guaranteed, digital transformation at this scale is unlikely to succeed. It’s crucial to involve marginalised groups and civil society to participate in the process of digital transformation early on, so that these changes can be adopted and used by those who need them most.

Potential ideas included involving civil society early on to serve as watchdogs and monitoring, evaluation, and reporting leads, educating and empowering vulnerable groups through digital literacy and raising awareness about digital rights, and implementing continuous feedback mechanisms through which users can discuss what is or isn't working.

Gearing Up for the Future

Looking ahead, you really can’t think about digital without thinking about AI. Much of the discourse at our event centered around the need to test and see what works first, given how much AI is still developing and how many of those developments are happening far away from Moldova.

Irina Buzu, who serves as the Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Development and Digitization, spoke on how the country could benefit from this particular time in Moldova’s digital development. "We are not yet an EU member state, which gives us an amazing window of opportunity to become a sandbox for testing.”

Sandboxing means private companies can come to a small-scale, controlled environment and test what regulations are successful, efficient, and have political support. It gives a space for feedback and discussion on what works and what doesn't without the potential harms of outright implementation.

“We should explore sandboxing and see if we can harness the idea of open innovation when it comes to AI in Moldova... Being a small territory but also at the borderline with the EU, we can also let companies come and experiment here and retain the property rights and scale their solutions in the EU or somewhere else."

She continued, noting that eventually the country will have to regulate if it wants to be a member of the EU, but it's wise to take advantage of this unique position now.

It's exciting to see the buzz around new opportunities and the political will to ensure new changes within the public sector are safe and adopted. What's clear is the only way we can guarantee this effort is successful is by reflecting on the country's history and needs, assessing its current ecosystem, strengths, and weaknesses, and carefully planning the future to do no harm.

From what I saw, Moldova, a country at the nexus of past, present and future, is the ideal place for this to happen.

For more, read 'The Vast Potential of Moldova's Digital Transformation' or contact info@thepalladiumgroup.com.