Around 900 guests, 95 speakers, 68 sessions and 13 workshops – that was our CityLAB Summer Conference 2025! Here we take a quick look back at what made 18 June 2025 at the Umweltforum such a special day for Berlin’s digitalisation, with images and words that will remain in our memories for a long time to come. Whether it’s digital accessibility, AI-savvy administration or talking city trees: we could go on and on with the list of inspiring topics we discussed with you.
Would you like to see the complete slideshow for your own personal trip down memory lane? Then take a look at our Flickr photo album.
All good things come in… six?
We are still amazed at how big CityLAB has grown in six years. And not just as Berlin’s public innovation lab, but above all with a growing community of urban thought leaders in and around Berlin who want to make a big difference with us.
This was clearly evident at our largest CityLAB summer conference to date: from the moment check-in opened at 8:30 a.m., the indoor and outdoor areas of the Umweltforum in Berlin-Friedrichshain were buzzing with activity, with many of the 900 guests travelling from other federal states especially for the event. This year, our open call once again attracted numerous submissions from administrative staff from all over Germany on topics such as digital accessibility and digital checks for laws. And with our international guests from the USA and Great Britain, several formats were also held in English, the second official language.
Disruptive and democratic
In his welcome address, our CityLAB Director Dr Benjamin Seidel used the main stage hall, which was filled to capacity, to set an important tone for the day: he called for disruptive and democratic thinking. Noticeable improvement in state modernisation requires a comprehensive data structure and sophisticated AI for administration – two topics that CityLAB is currently working on with Data Hub Berlin and BärGPT, which were presented later in the day to a packed audience.
The event continued seamlessly with the opening keynote speech by Ann Cathrin Riedel, Managing Director of NExT e.V., who impressively demonstrated why trust in the state and democracy must be strengthened in both positive and negative key moments. And not just so that more people file their tax returns – without fear of ending up in prison if they make mistakes.
Another strong impetus came from Lorena Jaume-Palasí, founder of the Ethical Tech Society and co-initiator of AlgorithmWatch, who critically questioned in her keynote speech on public welfare washing why databases and data centres are growing exponentially – and what added value they really offer people.
Copy + paste expressly permitted
Why develop more and more new solutions when there are already so many good ones? The first main stage panel of the day, shortly before the lunch break, gave express permission to copy and participate. The Stadtlabor2Go project is creating new labs in Wiesbaden and Mönchengladbach – based on the motto: Copy + paste expressly permitted!
After the lunch break, our second panel discussion on the main stage drew a large crowd, and the call to build on existing solutions became even more urgent.
Dr Ulf Buermeyer from Germany’s largest political podcast, Lage der Nation, would like to see systematic mapping of existing IT solutions and a genuine commitment to open source. Dr Julia Borggräfe from Metaplan, who published her book Bürokratopia this year, would like to see more functional decisions and new forms of cooperation. And Eileen O’Sullivan, the youngest department head in the history of the Frankfurt am Main city administration, is calling for more real-world laboratories in local communities so that projects can first be piloted and then incorporated into legislation. In other words: out with hierarchies, in with project responsibilities!
Thinking ahead with AI
So, how can we make government and administration AI-ready to reduce bureaucracy in the future? The afternoon programme on the main stage offered three very different ideas on how we can think ahead with AI. Stefan Truthän from the Berlin Fire Department talked about how our emergency responders are becoming even more efficient with the help of AI dashboards. Till Behnke, founder of betterplace.org and nebenan.de, provided insights into how he is currently working with AI on machine-readable laws for better bureaucracy. And Nicolas Zimmer, CEO of the Technology Foundation, explained why AI for the common good now needs open data and the courage to implement it.
The last word on our main stage was traditionally given by Berlin’s Chief Digital Officer, Martina Klement: In conversation with Manja Schreiner, Chief Executive of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, she gave an outlook on how Berlin’s administrative reform will now proceed in concrete terms – and why Berlin needs to make its existing digital services even better known.
Play, fun & management – indoors and outdoors
In addition to big words, our CityLAB summer conference naturally thrives on the little moments that bring us all together outside of work: The day started traditionally with the Open Data Breakfast, while the picnic edition of ‘Shaping Administration’ took place outside on a green meadow. New or just shy? With networking formats such as ‘No small talk? No problem!’, we provided opportunities throughout the day to strike up casual conversations, both indoors and outdoors.
The topics that premiered at our summer conference were definitely crowd-pleasers this year: The queue for the hands-on session for BärGPT stretched all the way outside, where we presented our AI assistant for administration for the first time – including concrete practical cases, data-based and, of course, secure in official German.
Our cooperation with the Senseable CityLAB at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was also particularly well received at the summer conference: Fábio Duarte and Julia Zimmermann showed how technology and urban greenery go hand in hand in their Tree Note and together with Matilda, our talking Tree Bot. After all, who knows more than our urban nature and its data?
Speaking of data that lies dormant in the city and actually speaks for itself: Data Hub Berlin also presented itself at this year’s summer conference. A packed audience listened to the keynote speech and subsequent panel discussion on how Berlin’s administration should move towards data flows instead of data silos in the future.
To participate and discover
Of course, alongside so many premieres, the well-known favourites from the CityLAB cosmos could not be missing this year: the community around Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin – our capital’s digital and smart city strategy – met for a get-together and invited visitors to the terrace to learn about projects such as Kiezbox 2.0 for Berlin’s digital crisis resilience.
As always, the mobile citizens’ office was a popular favourite for anyone who wanted to renew their passport without an appointment. And, of course, our Kiezlabor was also there as a mobile participatory format, this time in an airy cargo bike format instead of a tiny house container.
There was plenty more to discover in the foyer and outside the historic walls: from the AI escape room and our open data Supertrumpf card game to the lovingly handcrafted CityLAB Plinko board.
Summer, sun, fun: Of course, we couldn’t resist ending the evening with a proper pub quiz and then turning up the music – see you again next year?
PS: Now, of course, we are interested in hearing about your experience at the conference: What did you like? What can we do better? Please take a minute to complete our short survey so that we can further develop our CityLAB Summer Conference and organise it together with you again in 2026.
