Municipalities worldwide are facing similar challenges, especially since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The international, digital ideas competition #SolutionsForCities, initiated by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community, supported cities and municipalities in finding digital solutions promoting common-good oriented, sustainable urban development, which can be adapted and implemented following a citizen-centred design thinking strategy.
In order to find answers to the local challenges of the municipalities and cities, the format relied on nationally and internationally networked cooperation, as well as on co-creativity and public participation. With scalable and replicable digitally supported solutions, the competition offered a way to actually learn from the pandemic and sustainably transfer creative and innovative solutions to the future.
Among the participants have been representatives of the German Smart Cities Model Projects from Bamberg, Kaiserslautern, Kassel, Süderbrarup and Wolfsburg participated in the competition. From the International Smart Cities Network, the cities of Guadalajara from Mexico, Miraflores from Peru, Fortaleza from Brazil, and Kochi, Coimbatore and Bhubaneshwar from India took part.