Why we became public servants

These two videos are a small celebration of why people choose public service careers. Brian Whittaker, Rebecca Croll, and I compiled these with the help of wonderful public servant friends across Canada and the United States. They were shown at the 2023 FWD50 conference in Ottawa.

Part 1:

Part 2:

A big highlight of FWD50 this past year was being able to work with Brian on a panel celebrating awesome and inspiring public servants. Brian runs the Humans of Public Service project, a celebration of incredible public servants from across the United States that will brighten up your social media feeds.

We were really lucky to bring in Uchenna Moka-Solana and Dr. Rim Khazall, two brilliant and status quo-breaking public servants from the US and Canada. Uchenna and Rim talked about their public service journeys and what it looks like to challenge “how things are always done” in public sector organizations. You can watch our panel discussion on FWD50’s Access platform (you may need to create an account first).

One of the things Brian and I wanted to highlight was that amazing and inspiring public servants are everywhere. When you’re a public servant trying to change things, it can often feel like you’re alone against a giant system. Although we couldn’t bring dozens of public servants on stage, we wanted to celebrate how public servants are making a difference - in big and small ways, and often against the odds.

Rebecca is FWD50’s content director and edited these clips together amid a flurry of conference preparations! I’m really grateful to her and Brian and to everyone who was part of this video series.

You can watch keynotes, panel discussions, and other videos from the FWD50 conference on their online Access platform. And, you can register for the 2024 FWD50 conference here. Hope to see you there!