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#connectedinEurope: Sharing results and new ideas

The final online workshop of the #connectedinEurope project took place in December. The participating municipalities exchanged views on possibilities for continuation and scaling, and explored further project threads. The #CIE cities will continue working together on the common-good-oriented development of smart cities and regions in the future.

12/20/2024

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digital platform digital twin digital urban planning sensors & LoRaWan

The #connectedinEurope project has brought together 12 European cities over the past two years to exchange ideas on various topics related to spatial digitalisation in cities and regions. 

In December, the last joint online workshop of the project, organized by the International Smart Cities Network (ISCN) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building, took place. While the participating cities already had the opportunity to share their project results and reflect on the process in the last on-site meeting in Paris, the focus of this workshop was the continuation of the project.

Pillars Scaling
Pillars for Scaling Smart City Solutions in Germany

The participants discussed ways of transferring the projects and results from #CIE within and outside the participating municipalities. The ISCN team gave an overview of the pillars for scaling smart city solutions in the German smart city landscape, including the Smart City Dialogue's knowledge-and-networking-platform, the open repository Open CoDE and a marketplace currently under development. 

In terms of knowledge transfer, the ISCN team shared the most important findings and experiences from the World Urban Forum in Cairo and the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. 
From the World Urban Forum, the latest initiatives and programmes of UN-Habitat were presented, such as the process for creating People-centred Smart City Guidelines, the new World Smart Cities Outlook and the Global Assessment of Responsible AI in Cities. 
From SCWEC in Barcelona, the team shared observations on new topics and approaches in both the private and public sectors, including current developments in the field of digital twins, as some cities are also working on developing digital images of their cities and related topics as part of #CIE.

The workshop was also used to present different projects from the ISCN network, e.g. from the ISCN Global Mixer and the Online Advisory Programme formats, in order to find links and potential synergies with the #CIE cities. In addition, the team highlighted opportunities to apply for European Union funding programmes, for example via the Portico funding portal.

With the ISCN, the #connectedinEurope cities will continue to have a strong partner in the facilitation of initiatives and projects in international smart city development. In addition, the partnerships and networks established within the framework of #VIE will continue and expanded beyond the project duration. This is evidenced by the various processes that will continue in the cities after 2024, as well as the interest of other municipalites in joining the activities of the tandems. 

Through #connectedinEurope, existing city partnerships have been strengthened and new ones established, EU project applications have been initiated and municipal data exchanged. 
Most importantly, the trusting cooperation between European cities has created a strong network that will continue to drive the future development of common-good-oriented smart cities and regions.