We advance Smart City Berlin and innovations in city

With digital tools, we can organise our coexistence better than ever. If data from typical urban closed loops such as power and water supply or transportation activities are networked, the closed loops can be managed more efficiently.

An example from the property sector: Artificial intelligence can take over calculation and redistribution if the waste heat from a data centre can be used for the warm water supply to neighbours. Smart buildings handle energy more efficiently and sustainably and make an important contribution to climate reversal. As a result, the City of the Future will be carbon-neutral.

We regularly publish reports that show how the further networking of buildings and even entire neighbourhoods can make our life more sustainable. We are also active: we develop tools such as our real-time service for the water quality at the city’s lakes and beaches (link) or the day care centre search tool (link) to demonstrate the range of possibilities.

Organising the transformation process of becoming a smart city for the common good

The development of smart cities has been discussed at length, but primarily in technical terms. The main thrust has been the possible technical upgrading of existing facilities or the issues involved with data preparation and networking. Now those involved in the discussion are becoming increasingly aware of the opportunities linked to digitalisation. After all, those who do business efficiently will achieve climate goals more easily and those who share data can work inclusively and integrate others. But what goals need to be achieved and what is the best way forward?

On the path to a new smart-city strategy, Berlin has launched a participatory process. It will ensure that the upcoming issues will be discussed with all interested groups in the city, whose input will become part of the new strategy.

Through our CityLAB Berlin project, which we operated via a grant, we actively participate in the transformation process.

The city administration plays a key role in the transformation process. After all, lays the groundwork by providing the necessary data and quickly accepting new opportunities for collaboration or offering them itself, for example. City administration employees must be convinced of the benefits of such changes.

Just as in all other areas of life, digitalisation (in this case, eGovernment) encourages a disruptive viewpoint with regard to the status quo, and a willingness to accept far-reaching changes and implement them through GovTech and CivicTech projects. Such a mental transformation requires time and space.

In CityLAB Berlin, we provide unencumbered spaces to re-think the administration of tomorrow and through publications such as Public Design, we also make useful resources for innovative administration available.

Open data as a key condition for the digital transformation

To ensure that all the data captured in the city can be used for modernising its infrastructure and administration, they must be published in a way that enables others to use them for the long term. They must be made available as open data. But before they can be made accessible to the general public, they must be anonymised and translated into an open, machine-readable format. Berlin is committed to an open data strategy and in recent years, has begun to systematically prepare and publish data.

To help administrative offices with the publication of their data, Berlin’s Senate Department for Finance, Energy and Business established the Open Data Information Office (ODIS) for the Berlin city administration. It is part of our organisation.