The “Digital City” department in the Office for Economic Development is working towards a sustainable, digital transformation in Bonn. This involves looking beyond the city administration and into urban society. The networking of various stakeholders from business, science and society as well as the implementation of joint projects, measures and campaigns are of central importance. This involves close cooperation with the Chief Digital Officer and his team. The area also contributes to the overarching focus topic of “International branding as a cybersecurity and IT location”.

With the Bonn Digital Factory event, the Digital City team of the Bonn Economic Development Agency has developed a format that brings various aspects of digital transformation to life and provides a platform for networking and new ideas. The kick-off event in September 2023 was a complete success, which will be built upon with further events. 

At numerous stands, visitors were able to talk to colleagues from the administration and the city group about open data, the Citykey app or innovations from Stadtwerke and have the digital solutions explained to them. The City Museum presented the “City Stories” app with the help of the cargo bike and showed a new exhibition on citizen participation for the first time on the adjacent sidewalks of the location. Bonnorange presented prototypes of sensors that are intended to improve safety on cycle paths in the future. 

SWB Verwertung presented the “Andi Arbeit” robot and explained how it can make work at the waste recycling plant easier in the future. A total of 44 files were produced in 15.4 hours of printing time on the 3D printers of the “MakeCity Bonn” project and the Bonn City Library. 18 qualitative interviews were conducted at the e-government and OZG team stand, which will be incorporated into the improvement of online services in the medium term. In addition, the possibilities of the service portal were explained to many visitors and actively promoted. 

After the opening by Deputy Mayor Dr. Ursula Sautter and business promoter Victoria Appelbe, innovation promoter Steffen Budweg gave the first keynote speech on the topic of “Citizen participation and digitalization”. He spoke about two core theses, each of which was backed up with examples: “Participation needs digital tools” and “Digital tools need participation”. In the second keynote speech of the day, Larissa Bolte from the Sustainable AI Lab at the University of Bonn explained the various forms of artificial intelligence and where sustainability aspects are not given enough attention.
Many good conversations were held around the exhibition stands. Old contacts were refreshed and new ones made. The exchange took place between citizens and administration as well as within the city group and with political representatives and scientific institutions.

For the second time, the Digital City team from the Economic Development Agency was a project partner for the bachelor's degree courses in “Sustainable Engineering” and “Mechanical Engineering” at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. In the “Design Thinking” practical course, the team worked with Florian Wester from the start-up “flowbee” to set two “design challenges” for the students. The start-up develops, builds and sells nesting aids for wild bees. 

The first task is to equip the nesting aid with sensors to measure the optimum nesting conditions in terms of temperature and humidity, for example. This ensures that no mold forms that could endanger the brood. The key word here is digital.

In addition, the wild bee nesting aid product is to be tested with regard to a sustainable circular economy. How can the product be produced as sustainably as possible and without waste? The task was solved together with many stakeholders and presented to the project partners at a final event. The new findings offer the start-up a good opportunity for feedback on its product and efficient further development.  

The city app bundles various services for citizens and sees itself as a supplement to the municipal websites. New in the app since June 2024 is the possibility to give feedback on possible bicycle parking facilities. You are welcome to try it out! 

 Play Store (opens in a new tab)

 App Store (opens in a new tab)

Further information on Citykey can be found at the following link:  citykey-app (opens in a new tab)

The City of Bonn joined the international network “Cities Coaliton for digital Rights” on the initiative of the Council and under the leadership of the Economic Development Department. The alliance currently comprises around 54 cities worldwide and is committed to the protection, promotion and observance of digital civil rights. Within the network, the city of Bonn benefits from the exchange and experience of other alliance cities.

Experts from the cyber security scene have been discussing current issues and challenges at the Bonn Dialogue for Cyber Security since 2013. The aim of the event format, which takes place twice a year, is to raise awareness of Bonn as a location for IT security in addition to discussing specialist topics. The dialog is supported by the partners Bundesstadt Bonn, Deutsche Telekom, Fraunhofer FKIE, Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) Bonn/Rhein-Sieg, Alliance for Cyber Security, University of Bonn, Hi Solutions AG and Cyber Security Cluster Bonn e.V.

The 21st Bonn Dialogue for Cybersecurity took place in November 2023 on the topic of “Against natural stupidity - Does AI help us in security and everyday life?” and focused on developments in the field of artificial intelligence and the connection to security-relevant topics in the IT landscape. 

“Cybernation Deutschland: Together we are more secure” was the theme of the 22nd edition of the event series in April 2024. Claudia Plattner, President of the Federal Office for Information Security, presented the strategic goals for the joint creation of a cybernation Germany.  

The city of Bonn is a modern UN city that is a great place to work and live. As a densely populated city, it benefits from a very well-developed copper and TV network. On this basis, the transmission signals (vectoring) and logging (DocSIS for the TV network) are being optimized so that bandwidths of 250 Mbit/s (99% of connections) up to 1000 Mbit/s (83% of connections) are possible at many address points.

Due to the very good copper network, fiber optic coverage was still at seven percent in 2020. The first program, the so-called “Weiße-Flecken-Programm”, will enable around 51 primary and special schools as well as two industrial estates to be connected by the end of 2024. In the second program, the “Special call for commercial areas, industrial parks, schools and hospitals”, the focus is primarily on all other commercial areas in Bonn as well as a further 22 institutions. It is currently assumed that all address points will be developed by 2025.

In the third “Grey Spots” program, the administration applied for total funding of €36.4 million in May 2022, half of which has already been approved by the federal government. In a subsequent market exploration procedure, the market participants were asked what current speeds they can offer and whether they have their own plans for expansion. If speeds of more than 100 Mbit/s are available or there are own expansion plans, the expansion may not be funded.

In further talks between the end of 2022 and the end of 2024, the administration was able to win over further companies for nationwide, self-sufficient expansion. As a result, the funding amount already applied for can be significantly reduced, which is of particular interest to the budget of the federal city, as the municipal contribution to the funding amount is also significantly reduced. With the findings from the last two years, fiber optics and other future technologies in mobile communications are becoming increasingly important as an infrastructure issue and as a location factor for the business and science location and UN city of Bonn. For this reason, the administration is currently working on an organizational measure to coordinate the fixed network, mobile communications and any future, as yet unforeseeable infrastructure issues “from a single source”.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)