The Bennett Public Policy Prize 2024 invited early career researchers and policy professionals worldwide to answer the question: How can AI be implemented to improve public services?
The Bennett Public Policy Prize 2024, announced on 22 March during its annual conference, celebrated early career researchers and policy professionals for their innovative ideas on implementing AI to enhance public services. Dr Viviana Angely Bastidas Melo, CSIC Research Associate at the University of Cambridge was among the three runners-up, with her essay titled "Architecting Public Services: A Socio-technical Perspective on AI Deployment." In her essay, Dr Bastidas emphasised the need to consider both social and technical concepts in the responsible deployment of AI systems to enhance public services. She highlighted the importance of aligning these concepts to prioritise public value creation and leadership capacity within local authorities and the private sector. Viviana's essay showcased a deep understanding of the complex challenges and received recognition from the judging panel, including Prof Neil Lawrence who praised Dr Bastidas' essay for its holistic approach by stating “What I enjoyed about the essay was that it worked from the societal challenges towards the technological solutions, recognising the fundamental socio-technical nature of the problems as well as showing a deep understanding of the role of civil administrators and how they could be supported”.
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