The Morgenstadt Urban Data Community

How can cities and municipal enterprises use urban data efficiently, transparently and profitably and generate added value for citizens of their municipality in the process? The "Data Competence Center for Cities and Regions (DKSR)" is a project of the Fraunhofer Morgenstadt Initiative, which will be accompanied to be a spin-off company at the beginning of the year. It will then support municipalities and municipal enterprises as a neutral partner for the digital transformation. The DKSR uses an open-source approach to help municipalities locate urban data, retrieve it in a structured manner and share it securely. 

Joint development through exchange of experience 

Building on the Morgenstadt network, the DKSR supports a lively exchange of knowledge and information for the joint further development of solutions and the exchange of data models and use cases. This happens with the support of the "Morgenstadt Urban Data Community". For cities and regions this means they have the advantage to be able to easily adopt data-based applications and models of other municipalities via "plug and play". Events and dedicated communication channels promote direct peer-to-peer exchange. The joint development effort also ensures reduced costs for all partners. The community will also jointly decide on defined development deliverables and priorities for the DKSR.

The four pioneer municipalities Stadtwerke Karlsruhe, Stadtwerke Mainz, the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region, and the city of Mönchengladbach will jointly establish the Morgenstadt Urban Data Community in Q1 2021 to jointly drive the data-driven transformation of cities and regions.