Berlin’s roadmap to becoming a smart city

Berlin has a new smart city and digital strategy: at the end of 2022, the strategy Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin officially passed the Berlin Senate.

During the almost two year long strategy process, we had the privilege of supporting the Senate Chancellery in the implementation of a broad participation process as part of the “Smart Cities Modellprojekt” program.

The focus was on participation, people and values. The strategy Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin was therefore developed in dialog with Berlin’s diverse urban society – moving away from a purely technological focus toward co-design and inclusion. Only in this way can Berlin’s path to becoming a sustainable, community-oriented, resilient and cooperative smart city succeed.

These first five pilot projects mark the start of the implementation of the strategy Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin.

Smart Space Hardenbergplatz:

As a typical station square with a high density of usage, Hardenbergplatz is to become smart and flexible for all forms of mobility, i.e. geared towards the specific event, day, weather and season.

Data & Smart City Governance Based on the Example of Air Quality Management:

The starting point for this measure is the question of how municipalities and technology companies can can cooperate on an equal footing on the topic of data use and processing in a way that is oriented towards the common good.

Smart Water:

Designing water and urban green spaces in a climate-friendly way: Smart Water aims to enable climate-smart urban planning that mitigates water pollution, heat islands, and flooding through agile stormwater planning and management.

Participatory Budgeting and Smart Participation:

In the context of participatory processes, interests tend to be distorted by a low level of non-representative participation. A variety of digitally supported participation methods are being tested in Treptow-Köpenick in order to increase participation in the district’s long-standing neighborhood fund. 

Kiezbox 2.0 – Data in Everyday Life and Crisis:

Crisis-proof local communications infrastructure is essential for the resilience of an increasingly digitalized city and supports disaster management on a needs-oriented basis. In the event of a crisis (e.g. A power outage), Kiezbox 2.0 provides solar-powered or battery-powered hotspots for public wi-fi where employees of emergency services and critical infrastructure companies or citizens can log on with their smartphones to communicate and identify any urgent need for action.

More information about the strategy Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin can be found here on the official website.

Find out what makes the strategy special from our perspective in this blog post. 

We are looking forward to supporting the implementation of the strategy – for a smart city Berlin!