International Smart City Exchange at the Federal Congress on National Urban Development Policy on 11.09.2020 in Stuttgart
“We’re piloting ourselves to death”
With this sentence, Prof. Jochen Rabe of the Department of Urban Resilience and Digitization at the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF) opened his speech. “We often observe that promising pilot projects do not survive the funding phase. The phenomenon is described as Death by Pilot. (…) In most cases, it is because from the outset the pilot projects are not designed in such a way that they can be sustained and scaled up if they are successful.
“We Need experimentation“
Eduardo Kaplan of the Brazilian National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) emphasised the importance of experimentation, sometimes to drive institutional innovation. “Most cities in Brazil are still organized in sectoral departments that think and work in silos.” There is no question that digitisation in cities requires new forms of cooperation and funding.
“The focus is on people”
In India, intelligent solutions in urban planning are not only strategic goals, but a simple necessity to cope with a steadily growing urban population. The development of digital solutions should always focus on people’s well-being, concluded Kunal Kumar, who as Joint Secretary and Mission Director leads the Smart Cities Mission of the Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MoHUA).