Deutsche Telekom has announced its ‘smart city co-creation toolbox’ which enables administrations to find out what citizens and companies want when developing a smart city strategy.
The organization’s guidance offers practical real-life examples to help city’s fulfill their digital goals.
The aim of the ‘smart city co-creation toolbox’ is to allow for administrations to investigate and develop their strategies to help cities become more efficient and greener as well as to help them adapt to new technologies in the best possible way.
United Smart Cities (USC) and the German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB) have partnered with the organization to fulfill his initiative.
Senior VP of smart city development at Deutsche Telekom, Markus Keller, said, “We want to make digitization as easy and attractive as possible for our smart city partners.”
He added, “In our conversations with city representatives, it became clear that there is still a lack of knowledge and networking opportunities within their municipalities when it comes to digital services. Our smart city co-creation toolbox helps cities to meet these challenges.”
According to the telco firm, one of the most essential aspects of devising a successful smart city strategy is to find out what citizens and organization really want early on in the planning process.
With the co-creation approach, the toolbox will help companies create a joint design for a potential smart city which would bring together a wider array of viewpoints from both citizens and administration. With stakeholders being involved in the early stages of the development process, it will ensure greater productivity and success.
A number of stages are involved in the co-creation process, the first step being to identify and understand the various target groups involved and the situation of the city.
Stakeholder or citizen journey mapping are involved in the process as well which would enable companies to identify the problem areas during the initial stages of development.
According to Deutsche Telekom, there will also be a smart city usage technique which would enable developers to engage in citizen role play; the company expects this to me a very popular tool.
“Digital technologies are helping cities and communities to work more efficiently, environmentally friendly and become even more attractive to citizens and local businesses,” said secretary-general of the Organization for International Economic Relations, Kari Elk.
She also went on to say that there is no “one-size-fits-all solution for digitization in the public space” as each region is different which means that they offer different challenges.
The German telco said that the toolbox has already been tested and has helped over 20 city partners. The feedback of this new service is said to have been positive overall and that it significantly contributed to smart city development.