Lovable sandbox for public administration: how ~80 officers learned to prototype

Context: why this project happened

Latvia's public administration — state institutions, agencies, municipalities — employs thousands of people who deal with document flows, manual processes and complex bureaucracy every day. They know their work environment better than any outside consultant. But they lack the tools to translate that knowledge into concrete digital solutions.

In early 2026, Elvis Dibaņins from the State Administration School (VAS) reached out. They were preparing the EU Recovery Fund project "Public Administration Digital Academy" and looking for a practical format where staff could themselves try out AI tools.

The goal was clear: not to theorise about "digital transformation", but to give a real experimental experience. An environment where a civil servant is allowed to make mistakes, try things out, prototype — without the risk of being told off for "doing it the wrong way".

That's how this project's working name was born — Lovable sandbox.

Client: VAS and the public administration audience

Client: the State Administration School, which has been developing public sector professionals in Latvia since 2010.

Audience: around 80 public administration officers from various institutions — experts, project and programme managers, department heads, IT and data specialists, administrative and communications staff, customer-facing officers.

Digital level of the audience: very mixed. Some participants work with Excel and Word every day. Others run IT projects. This range was one of the challenges.

Context: EU Recovery Fund project Nr.2.3.2.2.i.0/1/23/I/VARAM/001 — i.e. a publicly funded training cycle with a requirement for tangible, measurable outcomes.

Challenge: two simultaneous problems

When training the public sector, two problems usually go together:

First — differences in digital level. In one group, a person who has used a single Excel formula in their career sits next to an IT manager with 15 years of experience. A classic "beginner course" goes too slowly for the first and too fast for the second.

Second — security concerns. The public sector works with sensitive data. Many staff are cautious with AI tools because they don't know where the data goes and how it is used. Without solving this, no serious prototype gets built.

VAS' brief to me was to find a format that solves both problems at once.

Outcomes: what participants got

Every participant finished by formulating a concrete first step to take back to their institution. But the numbers aren't the story. The story is what participants themselves said.

What participants said during the sessions

I'm genuinely grateful for this kind of feedback — I heard it more than once across both sessions.

Client testimonial

After the cycle I asked Elvis Dibaņins — the project organiser on the VAS side — to share his view of the course and the sandbox format:

Why it worked

After these two sessions I've identified three things that made this project distinct from classic IT training:

First — built-in freedom in time. We didn't pressure participants that they had to finish a specific task at a specific moment. They could experiment, return to basics, try their idea several times. That gives the kind of psychological safety that some workplaces simply don't have.

Second — using a real AI tool, not demoing one. Many AI trainings consist of slides and screenshots. Here participants worked in Lovable themselves from minute one. The AI tool isn't an object of observation — it's a working tool in their hands.

Third — a complete learning loop. The first session set the foundations. Between sessions participants worked on their own. The second session was reflection and going deeper — what worked, what didn't, what to do next. This loop is more effective than classic one-off lectures.

Next step

If you're looking for a training cycle for your team or company — about AI tools, prototyping, or general digital-thinking development — get in touch.

Free 30-min consult — to discuss whether your situation is a fit. Or write directly to info@fullmarketing.me with a short brief — audience, format, goals.

Egils Boitmanis is a business, AI and strategic partner with 20+ years of experience in marketing and business development. Former co-founder of Infinitum 8 (the largest digital agency in the Baltics). Google Certified Trainer (Zurich, Dublin, Kraków, Prague, Vilnius). Lovable Vibe Coding instructor. Founder of AI Circle at the University of Latvia. All numbers in this article and Elvis Dibaņins' testimonial are published with VAS' permission.