Two representatives of Smart DevOps project took part in the Digital Cities Challenge high level conference in Brussels last week – Leonidas Anthopoulos from the University of Thessaly and Achilleas Kameas from the Hellenic Open University.
The event took place on 5th June and gathered smart city stakeholders from policy to business to academia and international institutions. It was the culmination of the Digital Cities Challenge launched by the European Commission.
About the event
The purpose of the Conference was to present cutting-edge issues in smart city strategic planning in EU cities (which is also the purpose of the Digital Cities Challenge (DCC) itself). The Conference was the culmination of 18 months of coaching, collaboration, knowledge sharing and peer review in the framework of the challenge (an initiative of the European Commission’s Directorate General GROW), which led to the formation of a network, a declaration of cooperation and numerous smart growth strategies.
Main highlights of the event were the following crucial smart city issues:
- Sustainable urban growth and development in the EU Agenda: policy planning in EU for 2030.
- Cities leading the global economy: how the cities define their business opportunities with technology.
- City-ecosystems and visionary leadership and governance: how local governments plan their technological future and they engage the stakeholders.
- The future of cities: infrastructure, technology and data.
- Upskilling the city: Disruptive education and training.
- Cities as market creators: how digital efforts run by cities can create business opportunities
More information on the event can be find on the DCC website here.
About Smart DevOps
DevOps project was discussed in the framework of the skills in smart cities. Project representatives raised the following questions to the participants of session #6 “Upskilling the City”:
- How do cities define skills for their employees who design or execute smart services?
- DevOps is a modern training method, which is being tested under an Erasmus+ project in several cities and EU Countries. Do you consider modern training methods in defining and upskilling smart service providers?
Moreover, DevOps project representatives discussed the projects with city representatives from Patras, Thessaloniki, Kavala and Trikala from Greece; Sofia, Bulgaria and Padova, Italy. They arranged personal meetings during the conference and explained the DevOps project’s potential and context. It was positively received by the participants, who expressed their interest in the role of DevOps for training their municipal employees who design or run smart services.
Take-aways
Digital skills have been placed at a high level on the EU agenda for digital growth. Upskilling and attracting talents through innovative and disruptive education and training schemes that prepare citizens for a bright future is a key area of action among cities.
Nevertheless, there’s still no clear planning from the European Commission on corresponding activities are going to be run at EU level, but soon DG GROW is expected to propose some clear objectives in this direction.
