Domain expert software and public administration

Here’s an idea. Could better software make large parts of the world much nicer to live in – and can it be built with ‘low code’ tools?

The world has a big and growing problem with some parts of the world being much more attractive to live in than others – and too many people trying to move from the unpleasant places to the pleasant places.

The social administration of a place is a major factor in how pleasant it is to live in. Is it dangerous? Can you find a job? Can you buy a house? Are there good schools? Can you go for a walk with your children without being mown down by a car? Can you access healthcare if you need it? Is it expensive? Is it intellectually stimulating? Can you get some peace?

And all of these factors (except the last three) come, to a large extent, down to the people who administrate society – who deliver effective policing and schools at a price taxpayers are able to pay, who can make the right adjustments to the business environment to keep it healthy, who can find the right balance between the need for transport and the need to stop cars damaging local life, and much more.

And all of these factors come down to sophisticated decision making and implementation of those decisions – which requires sophisticated information gathering, collaboration and analysis tools.

And nearly all fields have more information now than people can work with, so the tools are the bottleneck. And every specialist needs data in a different way – so they can’t be happy with standard software.

Government professionals don’t usually have large sums to spend on software – and they have also been very frustrated by the services provided by ‘big government’ software suppliers in the past. There is money available.

These all sound like business opportunities for ‘Software for Domain Experts’.

Imagine a Greek software start-up developing tools for improving social administration and selling it to a German town administration. Wouldn’t that be a great story?