Public participation in the Open Smart City Offenbach

On 16 November, the Stabsstelle Digitalisierung invited citizens and employees of the city and Stadtwerke Offenbach to the IHK Offenbach from 6 pm. Around 140 people accepted the invitation.

After a keynote speech by Tabea Hein, an expert in artificial intelligence, and a welcome address by Lord Mayor Dr. Felix Schwenke, the head of the staff unit, Anne Schwarz and Marius Müller, presented the key points of the strategy. Afterwards, those present were able to look at the individual strategy points at their leisure on display walls in the foyer, test and evaluate the first prototype of a Smart City app on tablets and talk to the management and staff of the Digitalization Stabsstelle.

In September 2023, there were various pop-up campaigns in waiting rooms. The Digitalization Stabsstelle visited customers at the Immigration Office, Citizens' Office, MainArbeit and the Offenbach Chamber of Commerce and Industry with a stand and lots of information to talk to them.

How can the Open Smart City improve your city? This was one of the questions posed by the Digitalization Stabsstelle, which had a stand at the Mainuferfest. Hundreds of people visited the stand and left their suggestions on posters and postcards. 12 DINA0 posters full of ideas and wishes were created. These are being evaluated and clustered by the Stabsstelle. There were also many conversations with citizens on the day.

From May 31 to June 7, information on the topic of Open Smart City was available in the town hall pavilion. Many citizens took the opportunity to find out more and contributed their ideas, wishes, opinions and expectations for an Open Smart City. These included: the online display of free park-and-ride spaces, more shade and greenery in the city centre in summer, online application for special permits, more use of people instead of posters to avoid waste, open and accessible administration, intelligent traffic light control, more non-location-based rental bikes and the digitalization of schools.

The first future workshop took place on May 13, 2023 in the Wetter- und Klima-Werkstatt. Randomly selected citizens were invited to discuss the topic of Open Smart City Offenbach with the employees of the Stabsstelle Digitalisierung. The participants contributed ideas and comments for shaping a vision and strategy for the Open Smart City. The participants were between 20 and 81 years old.

The future workshop marked the start of a series of citizen participation events for the Open Smart City, financed by funding from the "Starke Heimat" program of the state of Hesse. The aim of the funding project is to develop an initial vision and strategy for the city by the end of November.

The next participation formats are a pop-up store in the town hall pavilion from May 31 to June 7 and online participation.

If you would like to keep up to date with the Open Smart City and the other projects, you can register at opensmartcityoffenbachde.

What do Offenbach's citizens expect from a "smart" city? Should there be a smart city app and what should it be able to do? The Stabsstelle Digitalisierung surveyed Offenbach's citizens on 22 April 2023 on Wilhelmsplatz. Over 60 suggestions were submitted by the citizens. There were many ideas about what an Offenbach app should be able to do.

There are plans to organize further citizen participation formats. The aim is to create an innovative and sustainable concept that is geared towards the actual needs of citizens.