By Avnish Gungadurdoss
This is one of the most personally meaningful moments in Instiglio’s journey. We are officially launching the Government Empowerment Network (GEN) this July.
After 13 years of working alongside governments and more than 18 months of building GEN with civil servants and partners around the world, this launch reflects not just what we have learned, but what the next decade demands.
Every day, governments make decisions that shape our lives, from the quality of healthcare to the fairness of justice systems, to the inclusivity of our economic systems, to our collective response to the climate crisis. Now, more than ever, we need public institutions to outperform the challenges ahead of us. We need effective, trusted, and accountable institutions leading us forward.
At the heart of GEN’s big bet is a simple but powerful insight: The real change leaders are already inside government.
Entrepreneurial civil servants, often brilliant, committed, and courageous, are solving public problems every day. But despite their mandate, many remain underleveraged. They rarely have the tools, space, resources, recognition, or community to lead the kind of systemic change they know is possible. They are the most powerful yet invisible change leaders in society.
Even if only 1% of the world’s 300 million civil servants were more empowered to continuously transform their institutions, that is a 3 million-strong global force for change whose potential we can unleash.
GEN was built with them and for them.
GEN inspires and empowers a global network of civil service champions to drive transformational change in their societies. It combines two core elements: a deep reform incubator and an AI-powered platform that connects public leaders to the inspiration, shared knowledge, capabilities, and networks they need to lead from within government.
The incubator supports civil service champions through an eight-month journey of mentorship, peer exchange, and real-time coaching backed by rigorous reform science, embedded in their institutions rather than running in parallel.
Alongside it, GEN offers a digital platform that curates case studies, technical resources, and actionable insights. This infrastructure helps governments solve problems faster and with greater relevance, linking local ambition with global knowledge and expertise.
GEN believes that re-imagining public institutions must be led from within. By investing in those already working inside public systems, we unlock solutions that are more relevant, more resilient, and more likely to last, while empowering internal communities of change-makers to drive their institutions into the future.
We are launching our first cohort in Uganda on July 8, with others to follow in Colombia and Morocco. Our ambition by 2030:
→ 20,000 platform subscribers→ 1,500 champion teams→ 200 institutional transformations→ 190 million citizens impacted, and a global movement set in motion.
This is the moment. Foreign aid is retreating. Trust in public institutions is fraying. And AI is opening up new possibilities of supporting governments with unprecedented speed, scale, and sophistication. GEN fills in the vacuum left by aid, doubles down on government and good governance, harnesses AI for the public good, and takes a big bet on the millions of civil servants who hold the mandate and the proximity to lead change from within.
If you are one of them or want to help elevate those who are, join us. If you still need convincing, let’s talk.
We are just getting started.