The Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic is preparing to welcome hundreds of regional government leaders and digital policy experts for a landmark two-day gathering focused on advancing public sector digitalization across the Americas, scheduled to take place October 1–2 in Santo Domingo.
Nearly 20 countries from across Latin America and the Caribbean will send official delegations to the event, which combines two major recurring regional forums: the 9th Ministerial Meeting of Digital Government of the Americas and the 20th Annual Meeting of the Inter-American Network of Digital Government (Red Gealc). Dominican President Luis Abinader is set to headline the opening ceremony of the summit, which will be held at the JW Marriott hotel in the capital city of Santo Domingo.
The gathering counts high-profile institutional backers including the Dominican Ministry of Public Administration, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the global development non-profit Co-Develop. This year’s hosting coincides with the Dominican Republic holding the 2026 rotating presidency of Red Gealc, a role held through the country’s Government Office of Information and Communication Technologies (Ogtic). Edgar Batista, director general of Ogtic, currently serves as the network’s sitting president.
Deliberations across the two-day event will center on the most pressing challenges and opportunities in modern digital public administration, with core discussion themes covering digital public infrastructure, cross-system interoperability, universal digital identity, responsible data governance, public sector cybersecurity, and the ethical integration of artificial intelligence into government services.
Batista emphasized that the Dominican Republic’s leadership of the network and hosting of the summit creates a valuable opening to advance a collaborative regional digital transformation agenda, centered on sharing actionable, field-tested solutions between member states. Alongside plenary dialogues and working sessions, the summit will also host the 2026 ExcelGOB Awards, an honors program that recognizes groundbreaking digital government projects that prioritize improved public services and citizen-centric public governance.
Confirmed delegations set to participate in the gathering represent major regional economies and smaller nations alike, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay, among others. For host nation the Dominican Republic, the summit represents a key opportunity to highlight its own recent progress in expanding digital public services and scaling public sector innovation, while deepening partnerships with neighboring countries to advance collective digital development goals.