May 12, 2022
On 28 April, the Gutenberg Digital Hub in Mainz was the venue for the first Urban Data Summit, organized by the Mainz municipal utilities, the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU) and the Data Competence Centre for Cities and Regions (DKSR).
What concrete added value does the use of data create in urban design? And how can closer cooperation between cities and regions be used to increase this?We sought and developed answers to these questions in various interactive formats with around 60 participants.
Common paths of digital urban development
In the first panel of the day, three different working groups dealt with the focus topic of inter-municipal cooperation.The learnings at a glance:
- There is a great need for a closely networked open source community for municipal administration in collaboration with technologically savvy players.
- The focus must be on building competence within the municipalities in order to be able to act and make decisions independently.
- Municipal companies play a central role in the use of data in urban design. They are familiar with local conditions, stakeholders and needs. As they are usually majority-owned by the public sector, the city or municipality has a secure say in the use of data or the design of digitalization projects. This in turn strengthens trust in the use of data by municipal companies on the one hand and ensures that the digitalization processes and data use benefit the common good on the other.
- The success of the open source community depends above all on its governance – in other words, its set of rules. Who is allowed to edit and contribute code? And who ensures the quality of the code? These questions should be dealt with centrally by a single source.
- Community approaches can address a number of open source problems, especially in the context of smart cities/smart regions (keyword: critical infrastructure, safeguarding services of general interest). A large number of existing open source solutions based on open standards enable simple and direct experimentation, lower the barriers to getting started with data-based applications – and can therefore serve as a quick lever for innovation.
- Ultimately, it is important not to aim for one hundred percent success: Instead, think outside the box, actively test and also evaluate unsuccessful projects for future procedures. Or, to paraphrase a well-known sports equipment supplier: Just do it!
Gaia-X paves the way for Europe-wide cooperation
In the afternoon, we moved on to the next level: Europe. In an info course, in which the participants completed a dozen stations within sixty minutes, there was a wide range of information and exchange on architecture, players, best practices and perspectives of the GAIA-X digital ecosystem. We were able to count on representatives from the Gaia-X Hub Germany, the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, VKU, acatech, Materna, FIWARE and other exciting organizations.
Our conclusion from the individual stations: GAIA-X provides important solutions for a number of challenges in urban data use – the first federated services are currently being developed and piloted as open source tools. In the context of the smart city, however, GAIA-X is still an abstract future scenario for many; few see the infrastructure as a concrete solution option. The needs of municipalities for which GAIA-X offers support (e.g. sovereign and secure use of smart meter data for local energy communities) , must therefore be brought closer together with the GAIA-X offer in the future.
Of course, there was also plenty of time for networking: the Gutenberg Hub on the banks of the Rhine provided the perfect place to sunbathe, snack and chat on its terrace.
We would like to thank all the speakers and participants and especially the Mainz municipal utilities and the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU) for jointly organizing the summit! Let’s make sure that words are followed by data and action!
The results of the event with quotes from the organizers can be found in theMemorandum of the Urban Data Summitrecorded.
Read too much? A Videowith voices from the Summit can be found on the YouTube channel of Mainzer Stadtwerke AG.
The Summit was reported on byThe New Treasurerthe#stadtvonmorgen, the Tagesspiegel Background Smart City & Administration on May 3, 2022 and theMayen-Koblenz region.