Digital Forum highlighted trends and developments in the digital world
27.11.2023
Exchange and networking are the be-all and end-all when it comes to digitalization. This was precisely the focus of the Digital Forum, which took place for the first time in the city of Offenbach on November 16, 2023. It was organized by the Digitalization Stabsstelle, which is implementing digitalization projects in an inter-municipal collaboration with the cities of Marburg, Giessen, Limburg, Fulda and Wetzlar. The Digital Forum is part of the Total Digital project, which is led by the city of Giessen and in which Offenbach is participating together with the aforementioned municipalities. It is financed with funds from the state program "Starke Heimat Hessen", as are the joint projects "Open Smart Cities" under the leadership of the city of Offenbach and the creation of an eGovernment service and analysis dashboard under the leadership of the city of Marburg.
"The collaboration between the six municipalities in the implementation of smart ideas is unique and shows that this can be done successfully even without physical proximity. We are therefore very happy to support the 'Total Digital' project through our 'Starke Heimat Hessen' program," said Digital Minister Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus. "The Digital Forum provides insights into this success story and offers other municipalities the opportunity to find out more about this special cooperation. The partners' digitalization projects give the municipalities an attractive and modern image - this is an important building block on the way to our common goal of digital administration."
The Digital Forum is an event organized by the administration for the administration. This means that employees of the administration and municipal utilities can inform themselves about trends and developments in the digital world and exchange ideas. The employees also act as speakers and share their knowledge with colleagues.
"I am delighted with the large number of registrations. The high level of interest shows the importance of the topic in our city administration," said Lord Mayor Dr Felix Schwenke at the start of the event and emphasized: "Digitalization is not just about faster and better solutions for customers, but also about reducing workloads. This is very important in view of the shortage of skilled workers. We will always be faced with new tasks that we will have to master without being able to hire new staff. Digitalization and the use of artificial intelligence in particular are not miracle cures, of course. But with today's knowledge, they are a real opportunity to be able to complete our tasks in the future without additional employees."
The Digital Forum featured 16 exciting presentations and workshops by 22 employees from the city and municipal utilities as well as external experts. Topics included the use of artificial intelligence in administration and in the city, transformation in the municipality, analysis dashboards for services, inbox digitization, accessibility on the internet and visualization of processes. 170 employees, including staff from other municipalities, attended the Digital Forum. In addition to the presentations and workshops, participants were able to find out about the first version of the Open Smart City strategy in the foyer, try out a prototype of the Smart City app and talk to various exhibitors and each other.
Video impressions of the Digital Forum and Open Smart City closing event
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Background Program "Strong Home Hesse"
The "Starke Heimat Hessen" program supports local authorities with important projects for the future. These include childcare, healthcare and strengthening local public transport. Around 20 million euros will be available annually from 2020 to 2024 in the area of the Minister for Digital Strategy and Development, divided into three measures. Between 2020 and 2024, four million euros will be invested in the Civento digitalization platform, which will be made available to local authorities free of charge across the board by the state of Hesse. The platform is a central building block for the implementation of the Online Access Act in the municipal sector. Local authorities can also use it to process applications electronically - an important next step towards the full digitalization of municipal administration. A further almost 16 million euros were made available for the digitization of administration in 2020. And thirdly, from 2021 to 2024, up to 16 million euros will be used to fund municipal projects that relate to innovative projects in areas of digitization of municipal fields of action in the sense of Smart City / Smart Region. Projects are supported with between €100,000 and €2.5 million - with a funding rate of 90% and a maximum term of two years. In this way, the Smart Region community is expanding across the region and, with the development and transfer of innovative solutions, is ensuring more and more future-oriented locations in Hesse.