Morgenstadt: City Insights Meeting Dublin

A productive dialogue and numerous exciting impressions for the project partners

The Morgenstadt network partners visited the Irish capital for a three day long meeting. The program included both best-practice tours as well as workshops and lectures on the subject of the city of the future.

Stuttgart/Dublin - On the morning of March 8th, the Fraunhofer team, consisting of Alanus von Radecki, Dr. Natalie Pfau-Weller, Petr Suska, Alexander Schmidt, Vanessa Harwart and Dr. Alexander Rieck, began their journey from Frankfurt Airport to the Irish capital. There, the first network meeting of the Morgenstadt Initiative of the Year took place for three days, offering project partners and interested parties a versatile program of best practice tours, lectures, workshops and the possibility of intensive exchange and networking with one another.

At the beginning of the Network Meeting, the international delegation visited the famous Trinity College - the oldest university in Dublin. On the campus, in the heart of the Irish capital, both the striking old library and the Book of Kells from the ninth century, which has been given a world cultural heritage status since 2011, could have been seen in person by the guests. On the evening of the first day, an informal get-together took place in Ely's Winebar, which is situated in a modern location in the center, on the east coast of the "green island" of the metropolis. As a result, the network partners and Fraunhofer researchers had the opportunity to intensively exchange ideas in a relaxed atmosphere.

Workshops, ‘’elevator pitches’’ and impulse lectures as content input on the second day of networking.

At the start of the second day, the Morgenstadt team welcomed the participants in the impressive Wood Quay Venue, a conference complex, modern architecture of which blends in an impressive symbiosis with the 12th-century Hiberno Norse City Wall. The participants were welcomed by Jamie Cudden, the city's Smart City Commissioner, who emphasized the importance of the Morgenstadt partnership for the further development of Dublin as a smart city. Following the speeches of the city development experts, three parallel workshops were held, where attendence was free to the participants’ choice. Dr. Natalie Pfau-Weller led the Street of the Future Workshop, which focused on changing urban space usage and requirements (shared space, mobility, green infrastructure, etc), and innovative financing models for the road area. Willi Wendt's workshop on "connected urban spaces" focused on "intelligent street lighting" and Dr. Christina Sager-Klauß together with Stefan Bofinger presented the latest developments in the field of hybrid energy systems. Morgenstadt partners then had the opportunity to present their innovations in the field of "City of the Future" to the plenum. The Swiss consulting company Malik began with an application of the syntegration model within a "smart" neighborhood development in Helmond (NL), followed by the E.ON energy service provider with current projects in the area of ​​sustainable and networked neighborhood design as well as Fraunhofer IWES with research on wind energy and energy system technology.

The afternoon was opened by a World Café in which Petrus Suska, Alanus von Radecki and Alexander Schmidt were able to take short "elevator pitches" on the topics of smart city finance, urban governance & planning and the recent Fraunhofer spin-off, the smart society academy. Parallel to this, Vanessa Harwart presented Morgenstadt partners a first prototype of the Morgenstadt "Bable", which is also another Fraunhofer spin-off. The online platform brings transparency into the European "smart city market" and enables cities and companies to carry more efficient joint projects. The results of the respective discussion sessions were presented later on the plenum, which was followed by a series of interesting Smart City projects from different European cities in impulse lectures presented by Alanus von Radecki and Alexander Rieck. At a joint dinner in the fashionable HQ restaurant, in Docklands - the new business district of Dublin, where Google and Facebook have their European headquarters - a thematic input was once again given through a keynote by Jamie Cudden at the end of the second conference day.

Start-up flair, crash tests and high attendance on the last day in Dublin

On the third and final day of the first Network Meeting of the Morgenstadt Initiative in 2017, the Lord Mayor of the Irish capital, Daniel Carr, took the opportunity to welcome the plenum in person, thereby highlighting the importance of the Morgenstadt partnership for sustainable development of his city into the smart city of tomorrow. Two Morgenstadt partners subsequently had the opportunity to subject their product and service innovations to a "Business Model Crash-Testing". This is a roll-up game, which allows to get a differentiated feedback on urban innovations from the perspective of different urban stakeholders. The advantage of this special feedback method is that companies get significantly more specific feedback on their products because the participants focus on an explicit aspect based on their experience and perspective. The participating companies were Robert Bosch GmbH and Green City Solutions. The two companies received feedback from cities, other companies, as well as Fraunhofer prepresentatives.

At the end of the event, the participants visited the famous Dogpatch Labs in the afternoon. In the former market hall, which is currently home to a number of innovative start-up companies, they were given an insight into the founding scene of the Irish capital. "Morgenstadt means with each other, but also to learn and profit from each other. On the one hand, the participants in Dublin received numerous exciting impressions in a European metropolis; on the other hand, the event laid a ground to a fruitful dialogue between different actors in the process of sustainable urban development. Therefore, the networking meeting in Dublin was a great success for the participants and as well as for our team, "said Dr. Natalie Pfau-Weller, concluding, satisfied with the course of the network meeting.

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