Driving urban innovation from vision to scale

From tackling the climate crisis to bridging the digital divide, Smart Dublin uses collaboration and innovation to build a better, more resilient Dublin. To do this, we need to get our message out there to as wide an audience as possible - this is where BABLE has added huge value. They did all the heavy lifting to deliver a high-quality series of Podcasts highlighting our work across the Dublin region. They also published many of our use cases on their platform and invited us to participate on their panel at the Smart City Expo in Barcelona. All this activity has really helped increase the visibility of our work.

If you work with BABLE, you literally bring collaboration to the next level. There is so much drive, belief, creativity, dedication and kindness in the team and all are working for the greater good creating healthier, more liveable and sustainable cities. A highlight in our collaboration so far has been to introduce the project Danish Month to our national and international networks and to record a podcast about Copenhagen as a Smart City.

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. 

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.

With BABLE, Potsdam has developed fields of action for an innovative, fair and sustainable city. Together we developed great ideas with a strong national model character. Working with BABLE has inspired us and advanced our smart city projects significantly.

The hard-working BABLE team supported us very efficiently and motivated everyone involved. BABLE brought international expertise and great moderation skills. Together we structured a participatory, results-oriented and successful process. We truly enjoyed working together!

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!

BABLE gave an excellent overview about sustainable and smart urban mobility in the context of Mediterranean cities. The team members showed a rich knowledge from theory to practical and real-life implementations. We had the pleasure of having the BABLE training for our Medcities community and further mentoring services for 3 specific cities; namely, Monastir, Tataouine and Sfax.

Throughout our entire experience working with them, they were very professional and delivered an extremely high quality of work. For instance — their vast international Use Case database and knowledge, their attentive and regular follow-ups as well as their technical advice. A great partner to work with!

The professionalism of the BABLE team was excellent from day one, thanks to their helpfulness. They followed us step by step in developing our company page, our innovative energy efficiency product page and the most viewed Use Case of the year 2021, concerning the City of Antwerp.

This synergy allowed us to broaden our horizons on the opportunities in the world of Smart Cities, but not only that, it also allowed us to be constantly informed about events, fairs, tenders and community members.

A great partner to discover and collaborate with!

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.

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.

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.

The Southern Regional Assembly, Ireland worked with BABLE to advise us on the development of a framework for a regional approach to Smart Specialisation Strategy. This work involved extensive consultation across a wide spectrum of stakeholders via structured interviews and workshops followed by an in-depth SWOT analysis of the outcomes. This was pioneering work for the Southern Region of Ireland and BABLE guided us through what was a very complex process with ease. The results have exceeded our expectations and we are already starting to see the benefits. The BABLE consultants were a constant source of knowledge and were hugely committed and motivated.

We look forward to working with BABLE on future projects. 

BABLE is now my go-to every-day tool to check for relevant tenders, share news and information on our products, and follow activities from cities with interesting Use Cases and needs.