There is a metaphor that Robert Pirsig consigned to 20th century culture that has lost none of its relevance. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he distinguishes two opposing ways of relating to technology: that of the maintenance technician, who understands how the machine works, knows its mechanisms, governs it; and that of the bus passenger, who suffers it passively, unaware of all that goes on under the bonnet. The difference is not technical. It is cultural.

It is precisely this difference that the digital transformation of the public administration cannot afford to ignore. Digitising public services without building the necessary culture to govern them – within administrations and among citizens – risks producing a country of digital passengers: people who use tools without understanding them, institutions that implement technologies without measuring their impacts, organisations that chase innovation without asking for whom and at what cost.

In-house PA companies have a decisive role to play in this scenario. Not only as implementers of technological solutions, but as cultural agents of digital transformation.

From technology to awareness

Spreading a culture of digital sustainability means, first of all, changing the underlying question: not how to digitise, but why and for whom. It means moving from a technology-centred approach to one centred on people and impacts.

In public administration, this requires asking questions about how digital services are designed, who is excluded from them, what skills are needed to use them, and what value they generate over time. It is not enough to digitise a process: we need to ask whether that process is really simpler, fairer, more accessible for everyone – not only for those who already have high digital skills.

In-house companies, due to their intermediate position between PA and market, are able to translate this awareness into operational practices, making it an integral part of design and not an accessory or decorative element.

The paradox of digital natives

There is a misconception that is worth explicitly naming, because it weighs on many policy choices: the idea that the new generations, having grown up with a smartphone in their hands, are automatically more digitally aware. Not so. Ease of use deceives. It is mistaken for competence. And competence, in turn, is confused with critical awareness.

Knowing how to open an app is not the same as knowing what happens to one’s data. Knowing how to do a Google search is not the same as knowing how to assess the reliability of a source. Knowing how to publish content on social networks is not the same as understanding the logic of profiling and amplification that determines its dissemination.

This is the cultural territory in which in-house is called upon to operate: not only to train civil servants in digital skills, but to help build, in schools, in communities, in workplaces, a widespread capacity to govern the digital instead of being subjected to it.

Strategies for raising awareness

A culture is not imposed, it is built. And building it requires clear, continuous strategies capable of reaching different audiences.

In-house organisations can contribute through awareness-raising activities aimed at both PA and citizens: accessible information campaigns on topics such as personal data management, conscious use of online services, understanding the impacts of technological choices. But they can also work within administrations, supporting managers and officials in understanding the implications of the digital decisions they make every day, often without the conceptual tools to fully evaluate them.

Digital sustainability must become an evaluation criterion for public policies, on a par with efficiency and cost. Not a formal fulfilment, but a lens through which to read every design choice, every contract, every service provided.

Training and skills: human capital at the centre

There can be no digital sustainability without adequate skills. Training is the most powerful – and most often overlooked – tool for producing lasting cultural change.

In-house companies can design training courses for PA that go beyond technical skills, including topics such as data ethics, accessibility of services, inclusive design and impact measurement. At the same time, they can help develop initiatives aimed at citizens, with the aim of reducing the digital divide not only in terms of access, but also in the – deeper and more difficult – area of critical and responsible use.

Let’s break the boxes: a scalable model of digital education

In this context, the Rompiamo le scatole project, implemented by ACI Informatica in cooperation with the Foundation for Digital Sustainability within the framework of the Digital Republic initiatives, represents more than a goodwill initiative. It is the prototype of a model.

The aim of the project is not traditional digital literacy – teaching how to use tools – but pushing high school students to break out of the behavioural patterns in which an unconscious use of platforms risks locking us in. It means questioning what we take for granted: the impact of social media on our opinions, the value of the data we give up every day, the logic that governs the content we see. Transforming, in essence, passive users into subjects capable of a critical look.

With several editions under its belt, hundreds of students involved in webinars and classroom workshops, Let’s Break the Boxes demonstrates that PA in-house organisations – with their dual nature as technology organisations and public actors – are uniquely placed to develop and scale this type of educational intervention. Not as an extemporaneous initiative, but as a structural contribution to building digitally aware citizenship.

Collaboration and ecosystems: a shared responsibility

The dissemination of a culture of digital sustainability cannot be entrusted to a single actor. It requires ecosystems: networks in which public and private, school and business, institutions and civil society work around shared goals.

In-house organisations can play a facilitating role in this sense, creating spaces for comparison, promoting common standards, contributing to the construction of replicable models. Participation in the Stati Generali della Sostenibilità Digitale promoted by the Foundation is a concrete example of how this logic can work: pooling the experiences of different organisations, ensuring that good practices do not remain closed in a social balance sheet but become shared assets.

Conclusion: the infrastructure that cannot be seen

The digital transformation of PA will not be truly accomplished when all services are online. It will be accomplished when citizens know how to use them consciously, when officials know how to design them fairly, when organisations know how to measure themselves against impacts that go beyond operational efficiency.

This requires an infrastructure that cannot be seen: made of culture, awareness and critical competence. In-house companies have the tools, the position and the responsibility to help build it. Because digital, like Pirsig’s motorbike, is not taken like a bus. It must be understood, maintained, governed.

And to get there, you have to start with culture.