CERCAT, a public platform that understands what you ask

Public information in Catalonia is out there… scattered across a thousand websites and forms nobody understands. CERCAT was born to fix that: bring public services together in one place and make them usable by anyone.

Nobody commissioned this one: it was an entry. GovTech Catalunya, the Catalan government’s programme for finding technological answers to public challenges, and a team of four with one fixed idea: tear down barriers with technology. Not the first time either — in 2020 the same team won Hackovid with Ajudem.cat.

We built a platform that centralises public information and translates it into plain language. With natural language processing, you ask «what do I need to renew my DNI?» or «how do I register as self-employed?» and get a clear answer in seconds. No hopping between tabs.

We modelled procedures as data, not as pages. Every procedure has an authority, requirements, documents, deadlines and an official link; the answer is built from that and always cites its source. A search tool that makes things up is no use in public administration: here every answer shows where it came from.

We built the prototype and the entry: product, brand, demo and pitch to the jury. The project reached the GovTech Catalunya final, a nod to its potential to change the public sector and bring the government closer to people. If it moves to the next stage, it comes with a €41,000 budget for a real pilot.

And we left it at prototype stage — plainly said. CERCAT is not a public service in production; it is proof that it can be done. We put it that way because this studio doesn’t sell pilots as launches.

The government already has all the information. What it doesn’t have is someone to understand it for you. The key was treating the citizen’s question as the starting point, in their words and with their doubts, and making the technology fit that instead of the other way round.