City of Jena at digital trade fair in Berlin

From October 18 to 20, 2022, everything at the Smart Country Convention 2022 (SCCON) in Berlin revolved around the topics of smart city, open source and e-government. Germany's largest convention for the digitalization of the public sector brought together more than 12,000 stakeholders from politics, administration, the digital economy and science - with the aim of driving digital change forward together. To this end, keynote speeches, keynotes, sessions, exhibitions, get-togethers, meet & greets and panel discussions took place at various levels. As in previous years, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs acted as patron.

Manuela Meyer, digitization officer and overall project manager of the Smart City project of the city of Jena, was also on site to present the project with the motto "Jena digitizes, learns and shares. Our city creates and uses knowledge". At the stand of the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Building (BMWSB), she provided insights into the WISSENsAllmende Jena - the backbone of the project - and talked to other project managers and decision-makers.

Particularly pleasing: Klara Geywitz, Federal Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Construction, spoke in her keynote speech about the future of smart cities - and mentioned the successes of the city of Jena in this context. For the introduction of a nationwide digital strategy to be possible, simple and cost-effective solutions are needed to support municipalities and stakeholders and strengthen cooperation with regard to a sustainable, digital future:

"I would like to explicitly thank the city of Jena, as it has launched the SmartFLOSS platform, where municipalities can register their open source projects."

Ministerin Klara Geywitz refereriert über die Zukunftsperspektiven von Smart Cities in Deutschland.

© Smart City Dialog/Reinaldo Coddou

Benjamin Koppe, Head of the Department for Digitalization, emphasizes the importance of being a "Smart City model project":

"With the SmartFLOSS platform, we want to make our contribution to sharing knowledge about digital developments and tools, leveraging synergies and thus enabling inter-municipal collaboration. I would like to thank Martin Berger, the sub-project manager for digital infrastructure and data policy, for the idea and implementation of the SmartFLOSS platform."

This is a great honor for Manuela Meyer and her project team:

"We are very pleased about the personal thanks from Minister Geywitz and the attention it brings. It makes us proud and shows us that we are on the right track in Jena. At the same time, it is confirmation for us that close cooperation between municipalities and constant "learning from each other" are essential when implementing digital processes."

Click here to go directly to the speech by Minister Klara Geywitz.

Manuela Meyer, Digitalisierungsbeauftragte der Stadt Jena (links), im Gespräch mit Renate Mitterhuber, Referatsleiterin Smart Cities im BMWSB

© Stadt Jena