On 11-12 February 2019, representatives of 13 organisations from five countries came to Athens for the kick-off meeting of a new project “DevOps for Smart Cities“. This is a three-year Erasmus+ KA2, Sector Skills Alliances project, and one of the biggest project consortia that we have participated in. The main aim of the meeting, hosted by Hellenic Open University, was for partners to get to know each other, to learn about our organisations, experience in projects and in the topic, and to plan the work for the next three years.
What is the project about?
The two main topics of the project are evident from its title: DevOps and Smart Cities
What is DevOps?
DevOps is a compound of “development” and “operations”, and in software development it is methodology that combines the development phase (Dev) and the operations phase to shorten the development life cycle of a software product.
It is an agile and iterative approach where development and operations specialists work closely together since the beginning to continuously develop, deliver, test and improve the product.
What is a Smart City?
There are many definitions of what a Smart City is, but we propose the following:
“A smart city uses digital technology to connect, protect, and enhance the lives of citizens.”
Development and operation specialists that are behind the development of Smart Cities are
- Technical staff
- Managers
- Support staff
What will the project do?
Smart-DevOps project addresses the shortage of digital and transferrable skills in the municipalities’ smart cities sector.
It will address those working on Smart City strategies and tools, i.e. ICT and technical staff in municipalities, and will apply the DevOps approach to their work. This project will propose a methodology for implementing the DevOps approach in Smart Cities. It will also develop job profiles for Smart Cities DevOps professionals.
The project will:
- Map skills needs of smart cities Development and Operations professionals (ICT project managers, coders, technical writers, web-designers, system administrators, technicians, etc.) working in municipal ICT departments.
- Design and deliver a VET curricula combining digital and transferrable skills, including a MOOC, open educational resources (OERs), e-learning, face-to-face training and work-based experience.
- Pilot the developed curricula and valuate the experience in.
- Disseminate and exploit the project results beyond the partnership. ALL DIGITAL leads the dissemination activities.
Some key features:
- The project will strengthen the collaboration between VET (vocational education and training) providers, municipalities and smart cities IT vendors.
- eCF (European e-Competence Framework) will be used to describe the profiles
- a mapping exercise to ESCO-ISCO08 will be done (European and International Standard Classifications of Occupations)
- EQAVET (the European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training) will be used to ensure quality of training provision
- the project will relate to EQF / NQF (European and national qualifications frameworks) and ECVET (European credit system for vocational education and training) to facilitate mobility and recognition.
Who are the partners?
It is a Sector Skills Alliance where universities, VET providers, companies and national standardisation bodies come together to define and develop the skills needed in an emerging and very dynamic sector: Smart Cities.
- University of Thessaly (UTH), Greece – Project coordinator
- Hellenic Open University, Greece and its DIASSy Research Group – ALL DIGITAL member
- Ethniko Systima Ypodomon Poiotitas (Elot), Greece
- Digital Cities Of Central Greece, Greece
- University of Nicosia, Cyprus
- Associazione Centro Studi Citta Di Foligno, Italy – ALL DIGITAL member
- Nicosia Development Agency (ANEL) LTD, Cyprus
- Associazione Stati Generali dell’Innovazione, Italy – ALL DIGITAL member
- Europaischer Verband Beruflicher Bildungstrager (EVBB), Germany
- Hochschule der Wirtschaft für Management, Germany
- Bundesverband der Träger beruflicher Bildung e.V, Germany
- ALL DIGITAL AISBL, Belgium
- K-DIGITALE SRL, Italy
