Enabling digital competences – improving digitization powered by people

Under the motto ‘Enabling digital competences – improving digitization powered by people’ the Ideasforum e.V. invited to a first meeting on 8.10.2021 in the Bürgersaal of the Academy Mont-Cenis.

After the welcome by Mayor Dr. Frank Dudda, Minister of State Michelle Müntefering – Minister of State in the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany for Foreign and International Cultural Policy – addressed a few words via video message to those present.

This was followed by short keynote speeches by Ulrich Ahle, CEO Fiware Foundation, on “Digital platforms and how digitalization can support sustainability in cities” and held by Dr. Doreen Mölders – Director LWL Archaeological Museum Herne on “Digital education and art – the key for smart citizens?”.

Goals of the association

Afterwards, the board of Ideasforum e.V., Gianluca Dianese, Pierre Golz and Wiebke Schuchardt, introduced themselves, the concept as well as the goals of the association. To promote the digitalization of society and the economy, the association wants to support new forms of networking. The goal of the forum is to jointly shape digitization and urban development in a citizen-oriented manner.

The registered association is to play a central role in the realization of “smart cities” and in promoting voluntary commitment to the digitization of cities. True to the association’s motto “Powered by People,” the aim is to promote communication and collaboration with citizens and companies, to foster virtual test environments to support projects, and to enable the transfer of knowledge, also and especially between municipalities. The focus here is always on knowledge transfer using so-called open source technologies. The association’s goal is to promote innovations in digitization and other related fields of technology and make them accessible to the general public.

The aim is to shape the digitization of cities, society and the economy together with citizens in Ideasforum e.V. – for livable cities.

Project ideas in workshops

To this end, the first potential project ideas were presented to those present in three small workshops:

1. once upon e-time – digital education and art with Gianluca Dianese
2. smart energy – shaping the energy turnaround in the neighborhood with citizens with Dr. Markus Mirz – RWTH Aachen, Fraunhofer Institute Aachen
3. sustainability in cities and how digitalization can support this with Thomas Semmelmann, City of Herne.

At the very beginning, the members agreed to become visible with concrete projects. Therefore Ideasforum e.V. invited many stakeholders from the education sector to discuss digital education offers and to present a first project idea called “Once upon e-Time”.

Here, Dr. Mölders from the LWL Museum of Archaeology offered to make the museum available to interested young people as a real laboratory. The project aims to promote the learning of digital skills and media in a practical way by creating videos and knowledge platforms with pupils based on the current Stonehenge exhibition of the LWL Museum of Archaeology Herne, which will be disseminated internationally.

Following the event, the Forum still held its ordinary general meeting. The association decided to join the initiative Living-in.EU. This is a European approach to the promotion of sustainable cities and communities of the future, in which, true to the motto of the association, the citizens are at the center of project and urban development.

The Ideasforum becomes a registered association

On 30.6.2021 it is going to happen! With the support of the city of Herne and umagine GmbH the Ideasforum becomes a registered association! Founding members are Gianluca Dianese (Ideasforum), Wiebke Schuchardt (Ideasforum),Dr. Frank Dudda (City of Herne), Pierre Golz (City of Herne), Sven Schuchardt (Umagine GmbH), Cem Sentürk (Umagine GmbH), Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schuster (Institute for Sustainable Urban Development), Prof. Dr. Antonello Monti (RWTH AACHEN), Ulrich Ahle (FIWARE Foundation), Christoph Reitenberger (City of Dormagen), Andreas Haug (City of Göppingen).

We are looking forward to many active members!

Digital citizen participation with DIPAS available as open source software now

The digital participation system DIPAS, which was developed in Hamburg, has been available as open source software for subsequent use and joint further development since the end of February 2021.

DIPAS was developed as part of a three-year research and development project by the Hamburg Authority for Urban Development and Housing (BSW), the State Office for Geoinformation and Surveying (LGV), and the CityScienceLab (CSL) of HafenCity University, and was released as open source software in February 2021 during a conference to mark the end of the project. The system for informal citizen participation procedures was developed step by step and with several test loops in real participation procedures between 2017 and 2020 and evaluated during the project.

For more information read here https://urban-digital.de/digitale-beteiligung-dipas/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digitale_stadtentwicklung_maerz_2021&utm_term=2021-03-17