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.
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
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?
13:10 – 13:15 Closing of the conference
Prof Dr Panos Fitsilis, University of Thessaly