Jena digitizes, learns and shares.

Over the past few months, a Smart City Strategy for the city of Jena has been developed together with the urban community in virtual and face-to-face events and will be presented to the city council at its February meeting on 22 February 2023. The central element of the strategy paper is the question of how knowledge can be created and used for the city with the help of digitalization in order to further develop Jena in a fair, sustainable and innovative way and offer added value for its citizens.

At the presentation of the Smart City Strategy, Lord Mayor Dr. Thomas Nitzsche said: "Whether Jena is a city of light, a lighthouse or a city of science - the city's development has been shaped by a culture of knowledge, learning and implementation for centuries. We will also be able to use the close links between urban society, business and science to implement the Smart City Strategy."

Benjamin Koppe, Head of Department for Finance, Security and Citizen Services, thanks "over 70 participating institutions, companies, initiatives and associations from business, science, civil society and the city association who have contributed their expertise." This reflects the support and commitment of the entire city. "There was also a great deal of support for our strategy and the individual measures in local and state political bodies," reports the responsible department head.

The City of Jena's digitalization officer and overall project manager of the Smart City project, Manuela Meyer, presented the core areas of the Smart City strategy at a press conference:

Promoting digital skills, professionalization and knowledge transfer

The educational landscape in Jena is broad and diverse. In addition to general and vocational schools, we also have various non-formal educational opportunities, e.g. extracurricular programs offered by independent providers. Nevertheless, Jena as a center of knowledge and business needs digital skills for citizens and skilled workers. To this end, we offer needs-based and lifelong educational opportunities and exchange platforms for urban society, administration, science and business. For this reason, an ecosystem of knowledge transfer and networking is to be offered, e.g. in the form of research projects, conferences and hackathons.

Enabling participation, digital sovereignty and citizen involvement

The Stadtverbund isactively shaping the digitaltransformation of the citytogether with the citizens of Jena.The necessary prerequisites for this are being created for urban society. For us, this contributes to the digital sovereignty of all citizens of the city of Jena and the city association. We support both participation in digitalization regardless of the individual requirements of citizens and participation through digitalization. Urban society can contribute to the design and content of the digital space, just as it can use it. To this end, access to digital devices will be made available in a barrier-free manner.

Strengthening digital offerings and innovation

The aim of the Smart City Strategy is to make Jena a pioneer as a location for digitalization and innovation. To this end, the necessary spaces for experimentation are being created and the associated culture of innovation promoted. Digitization and innovation projects as well as an active start-up culture in Jena are supported in order to involve the city's society in shaping the future. A smart administration uses the participation of urban society to solve future challenges with a focus on the common good and to create benefit-oriented services. In addition to the expansion of digital services, internal processes within the city association are also to be optimized and digitalized.

Ensuring the secure provision of information and data

For us, urban data and information are a common good and should serve the common good. Everyone has the right to access and use urban data within the framework of the existing rules on data protection and data security. For this reason, data and information from the urban network should be made available transparently to everyone. Secure infrastructure and compliance with data protection and IT security guarantee the positive use of data. In addition to making the data available, it is to be processed for the urban community via an urban data platform (UDP) using suitable evaluation tools.

Developing Jena as a sustainable and climate-friendly place to live and work

With the help of digital technologies, an important contribution is to be made to overcoming current challenges and their effects in the urban space. In addition to climate change and its consequences, these include in particular the ageing of society, the shortage of skilled workers and the increasing competition for the use of urban space. Smart solutions will improve the quality of life and living for citizens and increase Jena's attractiveness as a place to work.

The Smart City team has worked together in various working groups and sub-working groups to develop nine bundles of measures consisting of around 50 sub-measures. The Smart City strategy creates a large overall picture in which no measure stands alone, but everything is interlinked and will only have an effect as a whole.