Data-Driven Cities: Conference for the Urban Common Good

More than 100 experts from Germany, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and other African countries met on site in Nairobi, the vibrant capital of Kenya, and around 85 participants from all over the world joined in online. They represented governments, city administrations, companies, scientific institutes and civil society organisations and thus a wide variety of stakeholders.

As the first international event of the German-Kenyan Digital Dialogue, the conference was formally opened by Edward Kisiang'ani, Principal Secretary for Broadcasting and Telecommunications at the Kenyan Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy (MICDE), State Secretary Stefan Schnorr of the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV) and State Secretary Rolf Bösinger of the German Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building (BMWSB). All three hosts emphasised the great importance of cross-border cooperation for the development of digital solutions for urban development. Their message was clear: together we can use digital tools to make our cities more liveable.

The conference was organised by the International Digital Dialogues initiative of the BMDV and the International Smart Cities Network (ISCN) of the BMWSB, both of which are implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

The agenda of the conference focussed on different levels of data collection and data use in cities. Presentations on successful data strategies, data platforms and use cases gave participants an insight into best practices and useful tips for their own work in urban development. In the morning of the first day, representatives of the BMWSB and the City of Cape Town explained their approaches to utilising data for the common good and discussed these with the audience. Various data platforms from Ghana, South Africa and Germany were then presented as possible infrastructures grounded in such data strategies, including the  Durban Edge Open Data Portal, the BMDV's Mobilithek and Daten:Raum:Freiburg.

In the afternoon, a total of eleven projects and use cases were presented, demonstrating the variety of possible applications of data in urban development. They were clustered into the topics of "improving urban mobility", "efficient resource management" and "spatial planning in an urban context". These presentations not only provided insights into successful strategies, but also into the associated challenges and learning processes.

Karen Laßmann from the Senate Chancellery Berlin summarised her impressions as follows: "The challenges of the necessary digital transformations are the same, whether in Europe or in Africa. Conferences like this strengthen the (international) community and help us to learn from each other."

Finally, the participants had the opportunity to discuss the presented projects in working groups, identify initial alleys for replications and draw conclusions for their own work from the findings. The results of the working groups were collected and summarized in the plenary. They will be published soon in the form of a report as well.

On the second day of the conference, the participants visited KONZA Technopolis, Kenya's large-scale greenfield development of a smart city and an ambitious technology and innovation project around 60 kilometres south of Nairobi. As a key initiative on Kenya's national development agenda, it provided the ideal opportunity to gain insights into the future direction of the country's technology and innovation landscape and explore a data-driven urban space.

The event highlighted that a new era of urban development has begun, where data not only helps to solve existing problems, but also to identify and capitalise on future opportunities. The insights and inspiration from the conference will form the basis for continued dialogue and collaboration between all stakeholders.

On the afternoon of the second day of the conference, the International Smart Cities Network (ISCN) and the Connective Cities  project from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development organised an additional side event titled "Smart Connective Cities: Harnessing Ecosystem Potential for Digitalisation". The aim was to bring together specifically all the representatives from cities at the conference and to engage in a separate, in-depth peer-to-peer exchange.

In lively discussions and following illustrative interventions, among others, from Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kisumu, challenges were identified that were common to almost all cities in their pursuit of urban digitalisation:

1. Disruptions caused by political changes in city halls, and the question of how best to bridge them,
2. cultural and informational silos within city administrations, 
3. new ways of incorporating the needs, skills and impulses of citizens (e.g. via urban living labs, local citizens' initiatives, cooperatives or citizens' councils), and 
4. refocussing on urgent sectors and fields of action even when they do not immediately generate revenue.

In view of tight municipal budgets - a circumstance that affects many African cities even more than German ones - the opportunities offered by open source solutions were emphasised. These strengthen independence in the medium and long term and are therefore an important building block for the common good of cities. Better involvement of universities and colleges in many of the smart city approaches was also seen as a great opportunity to meet the challenges outlined at the beginning to be realized even further.

All in all, the Side Event resulted in an important first meeting, many newly established contacts, partnerships for overcoming common challenges and the inspiration and confidence to align Smart City activities more closely with the urban and regional common good.