Are you looking for an efficient and effective way to use your urban data for innovative urban development projects? Do you need a seamless way to share data between different administrative units and with external stakeholders? Or are you just at the beginning of your smart city journey and looking for technologies that will grow with your challenges?

In addition to the right technologies, comprehensive data governance is crucial when it comes to realizing the potential of urban data. In this webinar, we will therefore also look at the basics of data governance, why it is essential for sustainable smart city development and how our Smart City Data Hub Civora can support you in its implementation.

Discover the Civora Smart City Data Hub

A user-friendly solution designed to transform how cities manage and utilize data:

• Comprehensive Urban Data Tools: An urban data catalog based on piveau, dashboards for internal and external use, analytical tools, and the ability to incorporate digital city twins.

• Modular and Customizable: Tailor your data hub to your city’s unique needs and integrate data from diverse sources.

• Secure and Role-Based Access: A systematic access control system mirrors the formal workflows of municipal authorities, ensuring secure and efficient data management.

• Wide-Ranging Applications: From traffic control to energy data optimization, the Civora Smart City Data Hub supports a broad spectrum of smart city applications.

The Civora Smart City Data Hub empowers you to:

• Improve data sharing across departments and stakeholders.

• Streamline decision-making with data-based insights.

• Scale smart city initiatives with technologies that grow with your city’s requirements.

Take the next step towards a smarter, more connected future.

When? Wed. 11th December 2024 at 3pm GMT+1

Where? Online via MS Teams

We are DKSR, the Data Competence Center for Cities and Regions, a spin-off of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. We are a team of experts in urban development, urban planning, sustainability and urban data. And we are united by a clear vision: ecologically valuable, socially just and economically attractive cities and regions that master their complex challenges unerringly because they have all the information they need to do so! We help them do this by making the systemic complexity of cities and regions understandable and manageable with urban data. In this way, we enable decision-makers to weigh up options for action based on evidence in order to make our living spaces resilient and sustainable. We offer cities and municipalities: powerful data infrastructures, user-friendly urban data solutions for data management, data analysis and services for citizens as well as consulting, capacity building and targeted data services.

We are looking to strengthen our committed and friendly team as soon as possible:

Controller (m/f/d) part-time (20-25 h) with immediate effect

Location: Remote or Berlin
Working hours: 20-25 hours/week

Thesetasks await you:

As a controller (m/f/d), you will play a central role in financial management and the further development of our financial control. Your main tasks include:

• Monitoring, financing and reporting of German and EU-funded projects: Monitoring compliance with funding conditions, preparing and managing funding statements, ensuring the proper use of funds and timely reporting.
• Accounting: Optimization of the existing accounting process and responsibility of the accounting department. Monitoring of ongoing accounting processes and coordination with the tax office.
• Liquidity planning and management: Ensuring optimal liquidity planning and management; monitoring cash flows and financing.
• Cost management and optimization: Identification and analysis of cost drivers; development and implementation of measures to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
• Further development and implementation of internal control systems (ICS): establishment and continuous improvement of processes to ensure financial integrity and efficiency.
• Collaboration with internal and external stakeholders: Working closely with specialist departments, tax advisors and auditors to ensure smooth financial communication and transparency.

Do you find yourself here?

• Degree in economics, ideally with a focus on controlling, finance or a comparable qualification.
• Several years of professional experience in controlling, ideally in a medium-sized company or a comparable dynamic environment.
• Sound knowledge of financial accounting, budget planning and reporting.
• Experience in dealing with funding projects at German and EU level.
• Confident handling of MS Office, especially Excel; knowledge of ERP systems (e.g. DATEV) an advantage.
• Analytical thinking, strong problem-solving skills and a structured way of working.
• High degree of initiative and sense of responsibility as well as a cooperative and solution-oriented personality.
• You speak and write fluent German and English

This is what you can expect from us:

• Open and friendly cooperation at eye level in a dynamic team.
• Flat hierarchies and short decision-making paths in a growing company.
• A meaningful job with flexible working hours and the option of working from home.
• An attractive salary and a training budget for your professional and personal development.
• 30 days of vacation per year, plus time off on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
• Offsite workshops and regular team events to promote team spirit and personal exchange.
• Provision of a laptop or Macbook and a work telephone.
• Choice of job ticket or job bike.

At DKSR, we offer a lively, open and modern environment in which committed people can achieve extraordinary things with a lot of initiative and pioneering spirit. We are not looking for ready-made superheroes: We want bright minds who are open and curious and want to grow with us.

And so it goes on:

Are you interested and would you like to become part of our team? Then we look forward to receiving your application! Please send us your complete documents (CV, certificates and a short letter of motivation) by e-mail to cornelia.bahr@dksr.city. We look forward to getting to know you!

We are addressing this question in the BuildingTrust (BuTuGe) research project, which we are working on together with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Fraunhofer ISST), TU Dortmund University and the Institute for Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IöR) in Dresden. Specifically, it is about the conception and prototypical implementation of a building data trustee. A data trustee mediates data between data providers and data recipients and acts as an intermediary for data processing and security. It represents an independent trusted authority, comparable to a notary, and must not have any vested interest in the data. It is usually an institution that manages and mediates the data via a decentralized technical solution. Bundesdruckerei GmbH, for example, mediates pseudonymized health data between patients and medical research institutions via its data trustee platform.

A data trustee in the building sector can facilitate access to consolidated and up-to-date information, improve decision-making processes and increase efficiency for all stakeholders in the building sector. This in turn contributes to the achievement of climate targets, the creation of living space and the management of energy challenges.

Requirements for a data trustee

The first step of the project was to understand which building data was already available to stakeholders, which was still missing and how this could be brought together on a platform. In addition, initial prototype data products were generated. To this end, interviews were conducted with stakeholders such as owners, tenants, local authorities (e.g. building authorities), municipal companies (e.g. municipal utilities), companies and, in the future, banks and insurance companies in order to identify their requirements for a building data trustee. The initial findings were that there is a fundamental need for such a trustee, but that it must have certain characteristics in order to be used across the board.

There should always be an incentive for stakeholders to share data, which means that every data donor should also be a data recipient and every person or organization that donates data should also receive data required for their individual needs in return. To this end, the project developed a taxonomy that links existing and desired datasets from the building sector with potential data donors and data recipients. Furthermore, it was defined that there should be a digital building file, comparable to the patient file in the healthcare sector, in which the characteristics and properties of buildings are clearly recorded in a database.

What does the digital building file make possible?

Based on the information from the building file, so-called data products can be developed and successively complete the building data trustee. The following data products were identified during interviews, workshops and scientific research and would be technically feasible:

• Energy monitoring, whereby the aggregation of data from municipal heat planning enables monitoring of consumption for tenants as well as optimized and efficient planning for municipal utilities and planning offices
• An aggregator of building data to collect building criteria such as typology, year of construction, condition, need for renovation, type of building and many more for easy analysis of the building stock for planning authorities
• A funding finder that enables owners to quickly and easily find suitable funding programs for their individual building needs

Building on the general building file, many other data products can be developed, such as a pipe database, a refurbishment broker, a building materials register or an overview of past operating costs. The number of possible data products seems unlimited.

However, in order to not just stick to the concept, but also to initiate concrete technical development, the project is currently pushing ahead with the development of two testbeds. The first is the further development of the existing citizen science platform Colouring Dresdena tool that enables citizens to map criteria for buildings in their city themselves. This tool is to be further developed with a focus on the area of energy. In addition, the already developed prototype of a digital energy certificate from the predecessor project KomDaTis will be further developed. This should be quick and easy to apply for digitally in the future. In addition to these two specific technical developments, the DKSR is in discussions with municipal utilities to implement a digital solution for municipal heat planning.

The project will run until end of October 2025. Bis dahin sollen die Datenprodukte weiter ausdefiniert, die Entwicklung der Prototypen weiter vorangetrieben und darunterliegende Betriebs- und Geschäftsmodelle weiter vorangebracht werden. Sollten Sie am Projekt interessiert sein oder Fragen dazu haben, wenden Sie sich gerne direkt an unsere Kollegen David Hick oder Jonas Merbeth.

We are looking for a member of our team at the earliest possible date

Backend Developer (m/f/d)

Yourtasks:

• You further develop our data platform and implement requirements from our customers and partners.
• You develop and operate sophisticated software solutions based on a cloud-native technology stack and microservice architectures.
• You support us in the development of our product and take on tasks in the Open Source Technology Piveau. Experience in the following areas is required:
  • You carry out debugging, analysis and rectification of errors in the application software,
  • You build and operate pipelines for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery,
  • You automate tests to ensure quality,
  • You fulfill SLA requirements from projects through monitoring and qualified debugging processes,
  • You create reporting and documentation processes for developed elements through the projects,
  • You manage and develop safety elements for the DKSR components used.

The tasks may vary slightly: We want to use your strengths and interests wherever possible!

What you bring with you:

• Completed university degree, preferably Master’s level in computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, business informatics or similar.
• At least 5 years of experience as a backend developer / DevOps engineer
• Programming languages: Java (Vert.X, Spring, Springboot, Spring MVC, Swagger); Kotlin; Python
• Database technologies: ElasticSearch, PostGreSQL, PostGis, MongoDB, Object/blob storage MinIO, S3, RDF Triplestore
• Experience with cloud operations on Open Telekom Cloud, Microsoft Azure, AWS
• OAuth based IAM component. Operation on Keycloak, Azure AD
• CI/CD operation on Gitlab and Github
• Containerization with Docker
• Orchestration with Kubernetes, Docker-Compose
• Web services and protocols: HTTP, VPN, MQTT, SFTP, REST, SOAP, HTML, web security
• Tools such as Postman, Lens, Git, Prometheus, Grafana, APISIX/Gravitee, Terraform, Ansible, Tofu, HELM
• An open mindset and the desire to constantly develop yourself further.
• Fluency in German and English (min. C1)

What you can expect:

At DKSR, we offer a lively, open and modern environment in which committed people can achieve extraordinary things with a lot of initiative and pioneering spirit. We are not looking for ready-made superheroes: We want bright minds who are open and curious and want to grow with us.

We offer you:

• an exciting field of activity in the area of Smart City and digitization at the interface between the public sector and companies, cities and start-ups
• Flat hierarchies and plenty of personal creative freedom
• Collaboration with highly motivated colleagues from a wide range of industries and disciplines in a team-oriented corporate culture
• a public welfare and future-oriented activity in an increasingly important subject area

And also:

• a generous salary
• Flexible working hours with home office option (laptop provided)
• Flexible working location (Berlin is desirable, Cologne or Munich is possible)

YOUR APPLICATION

Apply now by e-mail toinfo@dksr.city and send us the following documents:

• Short curriculum vitae and relevant certificates
• Short cover letter with a focus on motivation

If you have any questions, please contact Manas Pradhan (manas.pradhan@dksr.city) will be happy to help you.

Open source connector software development kit (SDK)

What is the function of this component?

The Connector SDK is required to develop your own connectors for the Open Urban Pulse data platform. It is comparable to a toolbox that is needed to build connectors that connect data to the Open Urban Pulse. The connector SDK reduces the effort required to develop connectors by providing interfaces and SDK libraries for developers. The libraries consist of already written code that developers can use directly. This means they no longer have to write their own implementations. This makes it possible to write a large part of the code in the form of configurations instead of writing individual code for each functionality. Developers can connect to the Open Urban Pulse (OUP) with minimal effort and start sending real-time data via the OUP interfaces.

The open source version of the connector SDK, which is now available on GitHub, consists of several libraries that enable users to do the following:

1. The connection of external data sources via HTTP/HTTPs-based REST API endpoints
2. Retrieving data from the APIs
3. Processing the data in JSON format
4. Sending the processed data to the Open Urban Data Platform

Where does the component belong in the platform architecture?

Note:

In addition to the open source connector SDK, there is also a DKSR licensed connector SDK. The licensed connector SDK is a full version that supports the integration of multiple data sources such as MQTT, SQL, CSV, FTP and multiconnectors. The data sources supported in the open source version are also included in the full version.

In addition, a number of connectors for various data sources are already available in open source and can be found in the source code in the DKSR GitHub. These connectors are compatible with the open source Konnector SDK, which developers must have installed on their computer in order to test and execute the provided connector code.

Whether small, medium-sized or large municipalities, they all face various social, political and ecological challenges that need to be overcome in the coming years. Added to this is a tight financial situation, a shortage of skilled workers and very slow progress in digitalization. The introduction and use of UDCs therefore initially seems like a drop in the ocean to many local authorities. But to what extent are UDCs instead proving to be a hot potato that can help overcome the aforementioned challenges?

What exactly is an “urban digital twin”?

UDCs are virtual representations of urban environments that reflect real physical structures (e.g. streets or buildings) and processes (e.g. traffic flows or supply and disposal processes) in a digital platform and exchange information between the physical structures (e.g. building information) and the virtual representation at regular intervals, preferably at short notice (cf. VanDerHorn and Mahadevan, 2021). Simulations and analyses are automatically generated based on static and dynamic data in order to depict the current state of the physical environment as accurately as possible and to model possible future scenarios. By integrating diverse urban, often geo-based data, UDCs can bundle a wide range of information and present it virtually for decision-makers and citizens.

So much for the theory – however, in addition to a lack of financial and human resources, local authorities often simply lack the necessary technical expertise and convincing practical use cases that can justify implementation both internally and externally. Against this backdrop, the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital Affairs launched a funding project at the beginning of 2023 with the aim of supporting Bavarian municipalities in building up knowledge and implementing their own UDCs. The “TwinBy – Digital Twins for Bavaria” project started in April 2023 with a total of 18 funded projects, including small and medium-sized municipalities (e.g. Markt Weisendorf, Pressath and Haar) as well as several associations (e.g. NordAllianz, the district of Kulmbach or the two municipalities of Deggendorf and Plattling). The project was managed by the Bavarian innovation company “Bayern Innovativ”. The companies Virtual City Systems, CADFEM and CreativeClimateCities were responsible for building up the knowledge of the funding recipients and jointly developed an in-depth technical qualification program on the topic of “urban digital twins”. The companies DKSR, ui! and aconium provided the technical expertise and, in some cases, the core technologies for implementing the respective UDCs – based largely on open source. The project emphasized technological openness, and the municipalities were able to work with their existing systems as well as a mix of solutions from the consortium participants and/or third parties, depending on their individual circumstances. Within one year – with an average budget of around 50,000 euros per funded project – various local challenges were identified, numerous use cases were developed (e.g. in the areas of environment, energy, mobility, urban and construction planning, health and culture) and 17 digital twins were implemented.

One key finding? UDCs can be constructed in different ways, depending on the use case, the available technologies and the needs of the users. For example, 3D visualizations are a common component of such twins, enabled by the integration of three-dimensional models of buildings or the local topography into the data basis. 3D visualizations can be displayed in specialized software applications or browser-based tools, for example with the help of the open source tool “Masterportal” and enable particularly precise hazard forecasts in the context of severe weather scenarios.

Which use cases were implemented as part of TwinBy?

One municipality that has chosen this form of 3D visualization is the city of Schwabach. It has developed a use case for heat resilience and disaster prevention in which planning and sensor data (e.g. real-time data from heat sensors, data from water stations and evaluation data from its adopted climate concept) are integrated into its twin. This identifies and visualizes heat islands, i.e. places where heat builds up in the city. With the implementation of its UDZ, the municipality also pursued the goal of visualizing potential flood areas and developing an evacuation plan in order to be able to react quickly in the event of a disaster. The municipality used both DKSR’s urban data platform (OUP) and a 3D software application (master portal) to aggregate and visualize the (real-time) data. With the help of the UDZ, Schwabach was able to gain a better understanding of local heat islands and plan climate adaptation measures, such as greening, in a more targeted manner. On the other hand, the implemented use case creates transparency for citizens, who can find out about current temperature trends, cool areas in the city and available water sources.

As an alternative or in addition to 3D visualizations, UDZ can also be displayed in the form of interactive dashboards. These are primarily used to visualize real-time data and process it directly in the form of analyses. One municipality that used this form of visualization as part of the TwinBy project is Feldkirchen. The municipality was faced with the challenge of having little knowledge of its own consumption values and energy balances of municipal properties. A solution was therefore sought to make the consumption values and balances of the Feldkirchen town hall visible and controllable. For this reason, various data (including KNX data, electricity consumption data as well as room and occupancy plans) were bundled and visualized in a Grafana dashboard. In a further expansion stage, the data will be analyzed and electricity consumption in the town hall will be intelligently controlled. In addition, live occupancy data is to be made available via an app and used to improve the building’s room utilization. The building control system not only helps the municipality to better understand the energy balance of the town hall, but also to make decisions for more efficient building management. In addition, the use case can also improve climate protection and the carbon footprint by optimizing the use and potential of renewable energy and reducing consumption. This enables the municipality not only to reduce costs, but also to operate with maximum efficiency in the long term.

The UDZ of the town of Forchheim is also exciting. The town has been suffering from high traffic volumes for years. This means that certain traffic axes are bottlenecks that produce congestion, noise and unnecessary exhaust fumes. The city’s use case therefore focused on evaluating and analyzing floating car data. Using a traffic spider and the source-destination analysis method, a static analysis of traffic behavior was carried out on the basis of a Python script; the results were then exported and integrated into the UDZ. The integration of the data and the holistic analysis of traffic flows now enables the municipality to make better decisions in the area of municipal traffic planning, to minimize the volume of traffic at bottleneck locations and to reduce environmental and noise pollution.

More resilience through urban digital twins

These examples show that UDCs are capable of addressing municipal challenges within a short period of time and generating social, economic and ecological benefits for municipalities in the long term. The three use cases presented make it clear that municipal resilience can be created primarily through the intelligent use, evaluation and visualization of a wide variety of data sources. Urban digital twins are powerful tools that can make not only reality but also the future more tangible. If municipalities can show how they are doing in areas such as heat, flooding, traffic volumes or energy consumption, they are also in a position to make informed (and above all faster and therefore more cost-effective) decisions that have a positive impact on urban planning, traffic management or environmental and climate protection, i.e. the quality of life of citizens.

For many local authorities, however, the financing and technical implementation of an UDZ remains the crucial question. The only solution is to gradually expand internal inventory systems, keep an eye out for funding programs such as TwinBy and benefit from the implementation experience and findings of other municipalities for their own projects. Municipalities can already access the TwinBy project’s metadata catalog, in which all information on the implemented use cases can be found. The implementation of 17 urban digital twins as part of TwinBy has shown: We are not at the end, but at the beginning of a new twin era.

The digital twin from Schwabach presented in the article has been nominated for the Federal “Blue Compass”the highest state award for climate adaptation measures. The award is presented by the Federal Ministry for the Environment together with the Federal Environment Agency for dealing with climate impacts such as heat, drought and heavy rainfall. The public vote for the Community Award for the city of Schwabach can be cast here until June 18.

The aim of the Urban Data Summit 2024 was to meet the diverse needs of municipalities on their smart city journey. We are delighted to have organized this year’s event together with the Research Data Centre of the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) as part of Data Week Leipzig.

What potential uses can be made of open data for the administration? How can municipalities proceed with the introduction of trustworthy AI? What can municipal co-determination in the open source development process look like?

We sought and developed answers to these and other questions in 14 different low-threshold to expert sessions with around 70 participants on site and online. Open data, joint development, data exchange, replication and AI – the topics were wide-ranging and followed the aim of making municipal data use more comprehensible, trustworthy and efficient.

We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you: thank you to everyone who took part, got involved and engaged in the exchange. Only when municipalities pull together, share their knowledge and replicate use cases will we build up data competence and sovereignty in the administrations in the long term. It is always enlightening to understand exactly where the (municipal) shoe pinches. Or as Dr. Ramona Voshage from the IOER so aptly put it in her opening speech: If you want to be fast, go alone. If you want to get ahead, go together!

If you missed the Urban Data Summit, you can still watch a few sessions at

Youtube. You can find a brief insight into the day as well as impressions and feedback from participants and speakers below.

We are already looking forward to next year!

Please send feedback & queries to:

In June 2024, the Implementing Regulation on High Value Data (DVO-HVD) will come into force as European legislation aimed at making so-called high-value datasets more easily accessible. It obliges administrative bodies in possession of such data to publish it free of charge and under an open license, among other things. A handout on the subject, jointly produced by byte and DKSR, explains which data is covered, how local authorities can best proceed and what added value the new regulation brings.

The HVD Regulation is intended to pave the way for a European single market for data, which should ensure data sovereignty and global competitiveness in the long term. The regulation is the result of a comprehensive initiative that also includes the Data Act and the EU’s AI Act. belong. With the help of the various legal regulations, the EU is creating the basis for handling data in a way that aims to counter the multinational digital corporations and has been designed in line with European ideas: the use of open technologies and standards, a focus on data sovereignty and regulations on the ethical use of new technologies. European digital policy thus pursues the goal of a secure and sustainable digital transformation that puts people at the center.

A central component of this policy is the accessibility of data that forms the basis of urban and economic transformation, which is regulated in the DVO-HVD, among other things. The high-quality datasets described in the regulation are primarily data with increased socio-economic potential, such as population statistics and weather measurements. They enable the improvement of administrative services, the development of new business areas for (municipal) companies and create transparency for civil society.

However, there is still room for interpretation in the text of the EU regulation and its annex. To date, there is also no official information on the practical implementation of the DVO-HVD in Germany from the responsible Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK). The handout from byte and DKSR is intended to provide local authorities with an initial overview: What data must be published? Who is responsible for publication and how should this be done?

What exactly is high-value data?

In principle, six categories of high-quality datasets are defined that are to be made available openly: Geospatial (including a. INSPIRE), earth observation and environment (incl. a. INSPIRE), meteorology, statistics, business and mobility (incl. a. INSPIRE). Responsibility for publication lies with the administrative body holding the data, from the ministries and their subordinate departments to local authorities and municipal institutions. The corresponding costs are to be borne by the public authorities themselves. The data sets should be published in a machine-readable format such as CSV or JSON and be available via an application programming interface (API). An open license is to be used, which allows unrestricted reuse and includes an identification as HVD in the data description.

Where specified in the annex to the regulation, the data should be available as a mass download. The current interpretation of the DVO-HVD does not oblige the collection of data that is not yet available, nor, according to initial statements by the BMWK, does existing data have to be published – unless other specifications require publication. Data that (must) be published must meet the requirements set out in the HVD Regulation.

What can local authorities do now?

Even though the regulation will not come into force for a few months, local authorities should use the time now to get an overview of their own data and make preparations for publication. This is where a data inventory comes in handy: What data sets exist, how can they be described and where and in what format are they available? The handout uses a list of questions and a table to help create such an initial data catalog and identify possible HVDs and the relevant contact persons in the organization. In a second step, the guide uses questions and examples to help you prepare for publication.

To publish the data, For example, a data repository can be used via the company’s own website. And to enable optimal use of the data and make it easily accessible to a broad public, a dedicated data portal is suitable. It structures data for the best possible further use and is easy to use thanks to its functional user interface. Baye rian municipalities could use the Open Data Bayern infrastructure created by byte, on which municipalities can create their own instance, to publish the data.

Here you can download the handout on the EU Implementing Regulation on High-Value Datasets (DVO-HVD).

Do you want to get started now and need a data portal?

Based on the “Piveau” data management system developed by Fraunhofer FOKUS, DKSR offers open data portals for local authorities. Piveau provides you with a simple and cost-effective solution that meets the requirements of the HVD-DVO and enables you to take advantage of the benefits of open data. We also offer you a low-threshold introduction for administrative staff in our one-day workshop on data law.

Elastic Search

What is the function of this component?

Elastic Search is a data store including a search engine that enables the persistent storage of data. Thanks to this component, a wide variety of data such as documents and content in large, unstructured databases can be found quickly and almost in real time. Elastic Search enables fast searches, finely tuned relevance of results and powerful and easily scalable analysis. Elastic Search is the second most widely used search server.

Where does the component belong in the platform architecture?

Elastic Search