In order to achieve the goal of sustainable smart cities, strong collaborations in research and technology are critical. For this reason, the organizers invited six German urban research networks that are building partnerships in the US to develop innovative solutions and joint projects for resource-efficient and climate-adapted cities of the future. The event was part of the BMBF’s international campaign, “Shaping the Future – Building the City of Tomorrow.” The representatives of the German networks also took part in the Smart Cities NYC conference from May 3rd to May 6th, 2017.
The event at the German Center for Research and Innovation was opened by Katja Wiesbrock-Donovan, head of the Culture and Science Section at the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York. Even though cities will face multiple individual challenges, she emphasized the necessity for those responsible to cooperate and to learn from global experiences. Dr. Joann Halpern, director of the GCRI and the moderator of the evening, extended a warm welcome to the speakers and the audience. Petra Berkner from the BMBF and Jennifer Neumann from the DLR Project Management Agency and manager of the marketing campaign, “Shaping the Future – Building the City of Tomorrow” provided an overview of the campaign’s structure and goals, as well as its focus on presenting the German research system abroad.
The keynote was given by Erwin Rezelman, senior advisor at ProLegion. He opened his speech by highlighting the challenges that today’s cities face, such as safety, crowding, air pollution, and congestion. The pressure on cities is continuously rising as increasing numbers of people from a growing world population are moving to cities, especially in developing countries. Mr. Rezelman proposed that the next revolution that will help us manage this is the digitization of cities, meaning that everything connects to everything else. This means that decisions can be made automatically to possibly reduce a certain level of pollution or traffic congestion, or to tell people the best way to get from point A to point B. Mr. Rezelman explained that existing solutions, such as smart traffic lights or smart parking are not integrated yet. They run perfectly by themselves, only operating in isolation. By integrating all of these individual data streams into one open platform, stakeholders could benefit from just-in-time intelligence to make better decisions for creating value for cities. The open platform can provide an integrated solution and partnership approach, in which people and companies work together to deliver solutions. After his keynote speech, Mr. Rezelman answered a variety of questions from audience members, who were interested in topics, such as migration to cities and cyber security standards.
The next phase of the event focused on six German research networks that are all funded by the “Shaping the Future – Building the City of Tomorrow” campaign. Each project pitch was a five-minute presentation. Dr. Stephan Bartke from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) presented the DE-US.net network, which aims to bring together German and American inventors and trailblazers from municipalities, business, and academia to provide solutions for sustainable cities of tomorrow. DE-US.net is somewhat similar to Facebook or Twitter, but the benefit is that there is no other platform solely focused on smart cities and the interaction of those interested in shaping the city of tomorrow. DE-US.net supports its members by providing a platform to discuss ideas and innovative approaches, and through initiating a marketplace for people who are interested in working together.
Focusing on zero carbon city research, Prof. Ursula Eicker from the HFT Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences pitched CITYtrans, an energy-efficient city transformation project. Its main objective is the development of 3D urban models which can be used for urban energy planning and management. The modeling can be used to develop renewable concepts for a city’s neighborhoods or even whole regions. For example, using a building’s basic information, it is possible to calculate the heat and cooling demand in order to forecast how the weather may affect the building.
Daniel Hiller from the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics (EMI) explained how the urban resilience and security project TAURUS can hinder and support recovery from natural disasters, such as Superstorm Sandy and human-induced disasters. Mr. Hiller’s response to these challenges is based on resilience and applied research. In order to transfer possible technical solutions and management tools from a scientific level to real world environments, TAURUS has partnered with organizations from the Northeast Coast in the U.S. that work on urban and coastal resilience. They will also host events together with stakeholders from the private sector.
Marcus Jeutner from the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning (ISR) at the TU Berlin presented the Indo-German Smart Initiative (IGSI). He explained that India started an initiative to build 98 new smart cities within the next five years throughout the country. IGSI develops holistic solutions to specific challenges of determined urban spaces in India. The initiative strongly focuses on the concept of “Urban Design Thinking“, a method and planning tool which takes people into account as the main designers of urban spaces and puts them at the center of innovative development processes.
The project ‘GIP2China - German Innovation Package Traffic and Environment-Monitoring-System (TEMsys) goes to China’ presented by Alexander Sohr from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) focuses on traffic and environmental mobility solutions for megacities in China. After carrying out pilot projects in Chinese cities, the aim of GIP2China is to implement eco-friendly solutions by providing technology that reduces congestion and emissions.
Mirko Goletz, also from the DLR, pitched MoviCi: Urban Mobility in Smart Cities. MoviCi is a Colombian-German research network that intends to integrate different modes of transportation in urban areas. In order to achieve this goal, MoviCi promotes and establishes networks of German and Colombian partners to exchange knowledge and carry out several activities that focus on relevant stakeholders responsible for the application of smart mobility solutions in both countries.
In the engaging Q&A that followed, the speakers answered questions from the audience that ranged from the transferability of the projects to different countries, the importance of new mobility solutions, such as Uber and Lyft to the inclusion of sustainable smart city technologies.
