Smart Cities for a Common Good-Oriented Urban Development

On 10 November 2021, the International Smart Cities Network (ISCN), initiated by the Division Smart Cities of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI) as well as the Digital Transformation Center Kigali in Rwanda hosted the High-Level Online Symposium “Smart Cities for a Common Good-Oriented Urban Development”.

The Online Symposium captured the pulse of the international discussion on smart cities and provided an exceptional opportunity to showcase national policy frameworks, data strategies and innovative formats for open social innovation for a common good-oriented urban development.

Panel on National Policy Frameworks and Guidelines

The panal unpacks national policy frameworks and guidelines. How do guidelines on national level support and shape the sustainable digital transformation of municipalities? And which concrete recommendations result from e.g. the Dialogue Platform and Smart City Charter in Germany and Brasil or India’s Smart Cities Mission?

Panel on Data Strategies for a Common Good-oriented Urban Development

With an understanding of how policy frameworks are structured at the national level, the experts shared their experiences and reported on implementation projects that draw on data strategies for common good-oriented urban development: How do national strategies translate at municipal level? Which guidelines and recommendations can be made to municipalities on data governance and data strategies?

Panel on Open Social Innovation in Urban Development

To unlock the potential of data to inform decision making and urban development we require cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration as well as a human centric approaches. This leads to further discussion around the implementation of open social innovation and the principles of co-creation. This panel shed light on the different formats the public sector utilizes to drive change and innovation for the common good in society.

Katja Schäfer
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat)

Dr. Nadja Berseck
Hybrid City Lab, Zero360, Germany

Alice Higiro
Ministry of ICT & Innovation, Rwanda
(recorded afterwards)

The German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community as well as the co-hosting Rwandan Ministry of ICT and Innovation would like to thank all participants of the Online Symposium „Smart Cities for a Common Good-Oriented Urban Development“.

Along with the valuable presentations, discussions and insights, the symposium made an exciting and substantial contribution to the international Smart Cities dialogue. It can be an important building block for internationally networked cooperation and for a joint sustainable, common good-oriented implementation of the digital transformation in cities.