On 19 October 2022, Tegel Projekt GmbH hosted the FUTR HUB symposium as part of this year’s Smart Country Convention. In line with the objective of the congress fair “Digitize public services”, the event was an occasion to present the first work results of the development partnership of the FUTR HUB, the competence centre for urban data in Berlin TXL.
All participants were welcomed by Dr Ralf Kleindiek, CDO and State Secretary for Digital Affairs and Administrative Modernisation. He emphasised the importance of Berlin TXL as a key project for the Smart City Berlin. Digital transformation depends on strong partnerships to tackle problems such as climate change and expanding metropolises, Kleindiek said.
Afterwards, Gudrun Sack, managing director of Tegel Projekt GmbH, introduced the Berlin TXL project to the participants. The socio-ecological model project is already using smart solutions in various areas, for example on green spaces through Animal Aided Design or in the construction and water management of the emerging neighbourhoods.
Dr Stefan Höffken, Head of Digitalisation at Tegel Projekt GmbH, addressed the central key function of digitalisation in urban and neighbourhood planning. The newly developed data platform FUTR HUB offers a safe space, he said: through open source, open data, open API and open standards, any municipality can become a replication partner. “We try to live openness,” said Höffken, calling for use and participation.
He referred to Tegel Projekt GmbH’s data strategy, implemented in 2022, which points the way to data excellence for Berlin’s largest urban development project. This will be followed by the Open Data Strategy in 2023 and the Shared Data Strategy in 2024.
Further impulses were provided by practical examples from Ulm, Cologne and Bielefeld. Smart City & Urban Tech expert Damian Wagner-Herold reported from Ulm: “The challenges on the way to a smart city are often not technical problems. Aspects such as communication, organisation and transfer of expertise also need to be taken into account.
Gloria Volkmann, Open Data Project Manager of the City of Cologne, built on the point of “communication”. In order to be able to scale projects, a multi-stakeholder concept is necessary, which includes municipal utilities for the collection of necessary data, explained Volkmann. Benefits for all can only be achieved through transparency and a common basis of trust.
Jens Edler, Head of the Digitalisation Office of the City of Bielefeld, then gave an insight into how municipal innovation development can succeed by involving broad stakeholder groups from the entire city society.
Maria Berndt, from the Digitalisation and Urban Data team, guided the participants through the process that the Tegel Project is following with the development partnership. It is particularly important to involve partners at an early stage so that their requirements can be incorporated into concrete use cases. The first lightweight contract documents create a common understanding and a basis of trust. With Smart Nature, Smart Water and Smart Energy, three of the presented use cases are to start their technical implementation in the near future.
The lively finale was an open panel discussion with Dr Michael Mischke from the Berlin Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Business, Damian Wagner-Herold, Dr Stefan Höffken, Ulrich Ahle, CEO of the FIWARE Foundation and David Sossna, Project Manager Digitalradar münsterLAND. The participants in the discussion stated that the path to the future must be taken with open source data platforms: this is the only way to advance the development of digital infrastructures oriented towards the common good. The development partnership is proof of this process development and this cultural change, which brings authorities and administrations into direct dialogue with urban and civil society, science and business.
