In times when cities and communities are looking to digital solutions to tackle a growing range of interconnected challenges, we must boost these efforts through a ‘European Way’ where digital solutions help to create places where people enjoy living and working.
Digital solutions are broad and include approaches to smart urban mobility, energy efficiency, sustainable housing, digital public services, and civic-led governance. Large-scale uptake and upscale of these solutions are crucial to help our cities and communities meet their climate targets and reduce their environmental footprint, while fostering citizen participation and bringing prosperity to all types of business, including SMEs and start-ups.
Through co-creation with citizens, we aim to bring the economic and social benefits of this transformation to all local communities and implement an inclusive digital Europe, with powerful digital services, technologies, infrastructures and skills.
European cities are working to make life easier for their residents and Europeans more broadly. Finished the dozen different cards and procedures to access city services, one card – and/or app – will give people simple direct and personalised access to many different services within their own city – from using public transport to visiting a zoo, the local library or accessing social benefits. It offers people the possibility to access public services where and when they want.
This group aims to build a community of like-minded cities, working on local digital twins. The group will discuss the concept, bring forward concrete use cases from around the EU and then explore why cities would be interested in using local digital twins.
The beating heart of the urban digital transformation Urban data platforms are at the core of the digital transformation of cities and communities. It is the centrepiece for new and innovative services from a simple route-planner to complex digital twin solution. Urban Data Platforms are the beating hearts of the urban digital transformation as they connect, analyse and visualise all data from the urban fabric. From here, data can be further shared to city services or third-party providers offering seamless mobile experiences for citizens.
Work is underway by cities supported by the European Commission to develop EU standard contractual clauses for the procurement of ethical AI based on the good practices of the City of Amsterdam.
According to data 169 million EU citizens lack even basic digital skills. This accounts for 44% of Europeans between the ages of 16-74. Lack of access to digital services as well as lack of awareness of digital possibilities have major impact on the digital divide, resulting in social divide.
On 13 April 2023, the Living-in.EU legal subgroup is organising an online session to discuss the Interoperable Europe Act proposal and its (legal) implications for cities.
On 9 March, Living-in.EU and Wavestone organised an interactive workshop on the organisational and cultural interoperability challenges that local administrations may face when implementing data spaces and local digital twins.
Wavestone is conducting a study on organisational and cultural interoperability issues arising in local administrations when establishing local, regional or national data spaces or local digital twins drawing on examples from European public administrations for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (
The Living-in.EU legal subgroup is organising an online session to discuss the Interoperable Europe Act proposal and its implications for cities.
The first Mayors’ Digital Assembly of the Living-in.EU movement will be organised on 13 June afternoon, in the framework of the the biggest event for cities this year - the Brussels Urban Summit (BUS) taking place from 12 to 15 June 2023. More information about the BUS can be found here: https://www.urbansummit.brussels/.
We want to collaborate with innovative people and organisations to help develop solutions to our current challenges and create new opportunities for the future. To do this we want to explore new ways of working with others and identify the best ideas and technologies, wherever they may be. If you have one of those ideas, submit them here.
