03 Nov Smart Employees for Smart Cities conference

03 Nov, 2021

 

On Thursday, 25 November, from 9:30-13:15 CET, the DevOps competences for Smart Cities (Smart DevOps) project consortium will hold a final project’s online conference titled Smart Employees for Smart Cities. Those attending will have the opportunity to learn how to bridge the gap between today’s and future’s skills demands of the municipal workforce.

Register now

Smart cities are complex ecosystems that use information and communication technologies for helping their citizens and organizations deal with the challenges of urbanization, safety, resilience, and sustainability. Their creation is a long and laborious transformation that should not be considered mainly as a technical challenge but as a movement to create citizen-centred ecosystems that improve quality of life and stimulate economic activity.

A highly skilled workforce is key in rendering smart city ecosystems a reality. Even though billions of euros are invested in technological or urban development, not sufficient effort has been spent in training the necessary workforce with the skills needed in smart cities ecosystems.

The Smart DevOps project aims to close the gap between today’s and future’s skills demands of the municipal workforce by emphasizing the exploitation of emerging employment paradigms such as DevOps. The key advantage of DevOps is that it allows to innovate and rapidly deploy innovative solutions for the citizens. This was the premise and also a starting point of the DevOps competences for Smart Cities project.

At the final conference, we will present project deliverables, pilot activities results and facilitate discussions about the future of skills development in the Smart Cities sector. Specifically, you will hear about and be able to discuss:

• Key transversal and specific competencies for Smart Cities professionals
• 3 new emerging Smart City job profiles (Smart City Planner, Smart City IT Manager, Smart City IT Officer)
• Vocational Curricula for the three job profiles delivered through the Massive Online Open Course and Specialisation Courses
• Results of extensive pilot training attended by hundreds of trainees
• Smart City Body of Knowledge
• A growing community of Smart Cities stakeholders (IT and tech experts, public officials and employees)

 

The conference targets individuals and representatives of associations, institutions and businesses from local, national and European levels, namely (the list below is not exhaustive):

• Smart Cities professionals
• Municipalities and cities representatives
• IT experts
• VET providers
• Decision-makers
• Policy-makers
• Smart Cities Consultants
• Smart Cities Researchers

 

Conference programme

09:30 – 09:40     Welcome and introduction

Peter Palvoglyi, CEO of ALL DIGITAL

09:40 – 10:00     Keynote speech: Career challenges in smart cities – How does the digital transformation of cities affect careers and what has to be done towards a sustainable career ecosystem in smart cities?

Prof Dr Judith Hilde Semeijn, Open University of the Netherlands

10:00 – 10:20     Emerging smart city job roles and skills – The DevOps findings

Prof. Dr. Hans Rüdiger Kaufmann, The University of Applied Management Studies Manheim

10:20 – 10:40     Design and delivery of the Smart DevOps Curricula

Dr Theodor Panagiotakopoulos, Hellenic Open University

10:40 – 10:55     Fireside chat

Upskilling and introducing new profiles in the municipality and smart city administrations

Stelina Chatzichristou, Department for Skills and Labour Market, European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP)

10:55 – 11:10     Break

11:10 – 11:25     Pilot delivery of the Smart DevOps Curricula – Smart DevOps Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

Prof Angelika Kokkinaki, University of Nicosia – EDEX

11:25 – 11:40     Pilot delivery of the Smart DevOps Curricula – Specialization courses and Work-based learning

Vasilis Kyriatzis, University of Thessaly

11:40 – 11:55     Fireside chat

Discussion with MOOC and specialisation courses participants

11:55 – 12:25     Smart Cities Body of Knowledge

Prof Dr Panos Fitsilis, University of Thessaly

Prof Angelika Kokkinaki, University of Nicosia – EDEX

12:25 – 12:45     Q&A about project results

12:45 – 13:10     Fireside chat:

What is the future of Smart Cities and how to prepare for it?

Boštjan Koritnik, Minister of Public Administration, Government of Slovenia (tbc)

13:10 – 13:15     Closing of the conference

Prof Dr Panos Fitsilis, University of Thessaly

Register now

The event will take place online and everybody can join it. Registration is mandatory.