The Fusion of Digitalstrategie and Smart City Strategie

Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin is a fusion of Berlin's digital strategy and the new smart city strategy.

The digital strategy includes competence for the implementation of the smart city strategy.

The concept for implementation emerged from the development of Berlin's digital strategy, which was launched in 2018. The resulting green paper, a comprehensive overview of the current state of Berlin's digital activities and needs, was compiled and published in 2020. It describes the challenges and needs for action of the city. It also describes the need for organisational, procedural and technological change in order to solve the complex tasks of digitalisation across various departments, including plays from outside the administration.
Since 2021, a standardised process and tools have been developed and tested. They have helped complex projects to be processed in a targeted and agile manner.

The smart city strategy represents the vision for Berlin, for joint thinking on urban development and digitalisation.

Since September 2020, Berlin, under the responsibility of the Senate Chancellery, has been one of a total of 73 Modellprojekte Smart Cities (Smart City Model Projects) funded by the federal government. With this programme, the federal government has been fostering the development and implementation of smart-city strategies in municipalities nationwide since 2019. Berlin's successful application was made under the title „Berlin lebenswert smart – Die Stadt lebenswert und menschengerecht digitalisieren“ (“Berlin Liveably Smart – Digitalizing the City Liveably and Humanely”). The funds have been made available for two phases from November 2020 to December 2026: Phase A comprises the creation of a strategy (through December 2022), and in Phase B five pilot projects will be realised.

So we are creating an instrument that simultaneously gives us both direction and tools. The Gemeinsam Digital: Berlin strategy also includes measures and a concept for implementation while also integrating strategic elements of administrative digitalisation. For this purpose, it includes central infrastructure measures that are absolutely necessary to enable collaboration and cooperation within the administration and with urban society.