Innovation with cities and for cities

The Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place at the University of Liverpool recognises and expresses gratitude for the excellent work and report written by the international experts of BABLE GmbH and Fraunhofer FOKUS in Germany. This outstanding review of international good practices in the development of urban data ecosystems structured and capstoned an international symposium entitled, ‘Building Smart Cities with Citizens and for the Public Good’, held in March 2021. This has proven invaluable in helping the Liverpool City Region accelerate its transition to a smart, data-driven economy. We thank especially the authors-  Alanus von Radecki, Nikolay Tcholtchev, Philipp Lämmel, and Gretel Schaj - for calling attention to the key issues which cities and city regions need to confront when embarking upon a comprehensive digital and data transformation and for navigating these issues especially effectively.

Making a city more efficient, sustainable, socially-just and technologically advanced are the core themes of the Smart City vision. It is of central importance that the Smart City is much more than the distribution of various technologies in the city. It is also about organizational aspects and changes in society as well as urban culture. For example, we investigated and developed recommendations together with BABLE for the Liverpool region.  The resulting positive changes make me look back on this project with pride and satisfaction, knowing that we have had a lasting impact on the city's development. With the BABLE team consistently delivering excellent work, I look forward to more exciting joint projects as we support cities on their journey to becoming smarter cities. 

Through a series of trainings, workshops and discussions, BABLE helped us to build new capacities which provided a quick start in development of our national Smart City strategy and maturity assessment model. The activities and guidance were characterised by a holistic and experienced perspective and covered a varied number of topics such as governance, finance, Smart City solutions, and data, among others.

The cooperation with BABLE was characterised by very good technical comprehensibility and rigorous workshop management. The jointly developed content was able to show a clear path for how the city of Bielefeld can approach Smart Lighting projects in the future. The support from BABLE was insightful and innovative, and the documentation was helpful for the further process.

I got a positive experience from day one working with the team at BABLE. They are professional and very good at pushing forward in a steady and energizing way. Being part of workshops hosted by BABLE has also broadened my knowledge when it comes to the challenges and solutions important to us all when creating smarter and more sustainable cities.

Thanks to the cooperation with BABLE, we are one of the first organisations in Germany to be able to offer training on the topic of "Smart City", and our classically shaped training portfolio has been expanded to include new and sustainability related topics. BABLE has always been a committed, knowledgeable and trustworthy partner with a good network. They have had lots of motivation and patience and have always come with many good ideas for establishing our new "Smart City Officer" training.

BABLE supported us in our funding application for sustainable last-mile logistics in Ettlingen from the very beginning. Thanks to the agile and professional support during the project conception, the formation of the consortium and the acquisition of funding, the financing of our project could be secured. We are pleased that we will soon be able to enter the first test phase!

Working alongside BABLE Smart Cities has been a fantastic experience so far. I really like the fact that I can showcase our project and checkout what Smart Cities-related projects other companies are working on. But most importantly, their knowledge, expertise, and enthusiasm about development of Smart Cities has been a true source of inspiration for me personally and for BikeTrace as a company.