Measuring Digital Transformation in Brazil

In March 2018, Brazil launched a national Digital Transformation Strategy (BDTS) as part of the Federal Government’s efforts to harness the potential of digital technologies for economic and social development. This strategy, headed by the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication (MCTIC) and BDTS, is seen as a “living” policy framework, designed to be constantly monitored, evaluated and adjusted. The SIPA Capstone team was tasked by MCTIC to design a monitoring framework for the BDTS. 

The main objective of the project was to create a dashboard, based on a carefully curated set of indicators, to measure the progress of digital transformation against the goals outlined in the BDTS. This dashboard will holistically capture and track technology usage and development across homes, schools, government agencies and the private sector. The project methodology involved two phases. The first phase was researching how digital transformation is commonly measured and which indicators are used to do so.The Capstone team visited Brazil to meet with multiple experts and stakeholders to gain a deeper contextual understanding of digitization in Brazil, identify MCTIC’s  priorities for the dashboard and data availability. This resulted in a concise list of 45 indicators, which are most reflective of digital transformation in Brazil. The second phase of the project involved sourcing data for these indicators and beginning the design process for the dashboard template. 

The final deliverable consisted of a dashboard template and a data guide that will allow MCTIC and their partners to build a sophisticated monitoring tool for the use of all stakeholders in the digital transformation process. The larger project goals were to facilitate the strategic deployment of digital technologies in Brazil to strengthen the conditions for economic progress and global digital competitiveness and for a more efficient and accountable government. The key recommendation on moving forward with measuring digital transformation in Brazil cover bridging the data gap, completing the dashboard by filing the data unavailable to the team, and by integrating the dashboard into MCTIC’s workflow.