Public administration doesn't need another boring presentation; it needs courage and a bit of a show. With precisely this idea in mind, on August 25 and 26, 2026, we organized Innovation circus, a conference that chose a theater stage instead of a boring speaker's podium. The main performance took place live on August 26 at the Ján Palárik Theater in Trnava, where the auditorium became a real stage for local governments for one day. 

Instead of a pile of PowerPoints, mayors, lord mayors, and IT directors of cities and municipalities at our conference got a truly spectacular show—a combination of keynotes, workshops, and a 24-hour hackathon where teams built live, functional prototypes right in the arena. The circus metaphor is not just a decoration for the poster. It's a way of saying out loud that Change in public administration can be done differently than through another directive. 

The big top was sold out even before the event, while participation finally reached 110 % originally planned capacity. The Ján Palárik Theatre was literally bursting at the seams, in the best possible sense of the word. For a conference focused on the digitalization of cities and municipalities—a topic long considered marginal in the Slovak public space—this is a strong signal in itself. At the same time, this is the largest conference on AI in public administration in Slovakia, and frankly, we are quite proud of it.

Why now and why local governments?  

Towns and municipalities in Slovakia have been dealing with the same problem for a long time. Tasks are increasing, the number of people in offices is not, and the citizen expects that sorting something out at an office will be easier than before. We have been addressing this topic for a long time, and in practice, we see how companies and local governments are gradually replacing scattered Excel spreadsheets and paper agendas with a single digital environment. 

The Innovation Circus was an attempt to bring this topic out of the corporate environment and directly into a theater filled with people who actually make decisions about city and municipal budgets. That is precisely why it also had an international dimension: speakers from four countries arrived in the ring, each tackling the digitalization of public administration in a different way. It was great to see how their approaches complemented each other on a single stage. 

What was happening in the arena?  

The main program consisted of nine expert lectures and workshops, meaning nine separate acts of one large performance. Among the main highlights were: 

• Keynote speech by Petry Holm from Estonia, a country long regarded as an example in public administration digitalization, on the journey from bureaucracy to a nearly invisible government. 
• Keynote Sarah Winzer from Germany on European trends in the digitalization of local governments. 
• Practical workshop by Matthias Walter from the Swiss company Skybow focused on digital workflows in Microsoft 365. 
• Panel discussion with the Governor of the Trnava Self-Governing Region Jozef Viskupič, executive director of Slovensko.digital Peter Steinhübel, CEO of Inovia Vlastimil Kocián, and our CEO Matúš Izakovič, a great example of what the digitalization of local governments looks like in practice when potential meets reality. 
   

Part of the day also included a hands-on introduction to low-code tools in Microsoft 365, serving as a practical warmup for what participants could try out themselves in the hackathon a few hours later. Let's admit it, it rarely happens at a public administration conference that the audience actually tries something out personally instead of just listening. 

How did the hackathon – The Future of Municipalities in the AI Era work? 

The boldest number of the entire program was a 24-hour hackathon with the theme The Future of Local Governments in the AI Era, held under the auspices of our main partner, KIRA. Seven teams advanced to the final presentation, showcasing their work live in front of the audience and the jury without a safety net. The conditions were intentionally set so that truly anyone, not just developers, could enter the hackathon. The teams worked with low-code tools and had experienced mentors available throughout as coaches to help them maintain balance precisely when they needed it most. 

Ultimately, the biggest applause went to the teams Rise.sk, Kaktus, and Thrive Dev, three names worth remembering. The goal was not just to win applause from the audience, but to move an idea from the arena into a real office, which is ultimately why we have been addressing this topic for a longer period. 

What do cities and municipalities take away from this?  

For a local government considering the first step toward digitalization, the Innovation Circus is a great demonstration that the topic AI in public administration is no longer just theory from conference halls abroad. It happens right in Slovakia and is done by people who can build a working prototype in a few hours without knowing how to program. If we had one sentence to sum up the whole day, this would be it. 

We finally verified for ourselves right in Trnava that it can also be done live, while building the municipal hub on SharePoint, which we also write about in the article SharePoint: 10 Features That Will Transform Your Company Beyond Recognition, we saw how quickly a well-designed solution can save people about 60 targeted searches a day that they previously had to perform across scattered systems, while the entire deployment took about two and a half weeks. Exactly such successful projects are the best inspiration for us and proof that even a prototype from a hackathon arena has a real chance to grow into a similarly functioning solution. 

At the same time, it is not a story about how AI will solve everything with one trick overnight. A hackathon prototype is still just a prototype—more of a rehearsal in the ring than a finished performance before a full house of daily office operations. The journey from an idea on stage to everyday operations in a municipal office requires a lot of work, testing, and above all, the willingness of the city or town leadership to actually see the change through. That, too, can be discussed honestly at a public conference without it sounding like a sales brochure. 

And what's next? 

The Innovative Circus was, above all, proof that even the topic of public administration can be presented in such a spectacular way that people truly look forward to it—rather than just enduring it. The sold-out theater, with a capacity of 110 %, indicates that we succeeded, and we are sincerely grateful to everyone who made their way to join us that day. 

If your city, municipality, or organization is dealing with a similar question, meaning how to start digitizing your agenda without having to overhaul the entire office at once, we are happy to share our experience.