The latest buzzword on the Internet is citizen developers in an ever evolving landscape of new technologies, new words, and new phrases. But what is a citizen developer? According to Gartner Glossary, a citizen developer is an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others, using tools that are not actively forbidden by IT or business units. A citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. They report to a business unit or function other than IT. All citizen developers are business technologists. However, all business technologists are not necessarily citizen developers. There is no required designation of proficiency or time allocation for citizen developers but they must be legal employees of an organization. In a nutshell, a citizen developer is a business professional that is not IT or IT-trained professional in such fields as marketing, finance, accounting, operational, human resources and others, who see opportunities for using technologies to improve efficiency and functionality in a digital transformation era. They are the first ones to see the problem, and are able to come up with a solution on their own without going through the IT department.

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