Digital Cities Challenge conference taking place in Brussels

The Digital Cities Challenge keeps going strong, heading into the final months of the competition

The Digital Cities Challenge is hosting a high-level conference on the 5^th of June 2019, at its traditional venue in the European Commission Charlemagne building in Brussels. The conference is titled “Digital Cities Challenge: A strategy for EU cities in the 21^st Century”. The event is expected to host over 400 speakers – policy makers, such as Markku Markkula, First Vice president of the European Committee of the Regions, industry and business leaders like Pauliina Harrivaara of Robocoast and renowned academics including Pierre Alexandre Balland.

But what is the Digital Cities Challenge? In short, it’s a programme started by the European Commission in 2017 that aims to help 41 European cities develop and implement digital policies. The programme offers all participating cities access to a wide range of high-level experts, tools, training and capacity-building sessions and most importantly – a shared learning platform, that facilitates dialogue and cooperation. The initiative has grown rapidly over the years – it currently boasts a network of 41 cities, including 15 challenge cities (selected out of 92 total applicants), 20 fellow cities that follow the programme using their own resources and 6 mentor cities that share success practices with the group. The Challenge is currently in its final stages – the participating cities are expected to conclude the designs of their digital strategies and plan their implementation. To commemorate the journeys, lessons and experiences of the participants, a final report is expected to be published after the programme is concluded.  

You can find out more about the initiative at www.digitallytransformyourregion.eu