iStock/millannDigital Agenda 2030
How do we benefit from digital progress in Vienna? How do we make it accessible to everyone? How do we deal with artificial intelligence? The City of Vienna has implemented a broad-based process to come up with answers to these questions, and its result is the Digital Agenda 2030. Its focus is on linking quality of living and the growing opportunities offered by digitalisation. As such, it is a vital tool when it comes to achieving the goals set out in the Smart Climate City Strategy, providing guidance on Vienna’s journey towards becoming the capital of digitalisation. This Digital Agenda, which was adopted by the City Council’s Innovation Committee on 1 October 2024, replaces the version dating from 2015. It was developed in close cooperation with experts.
“The goal of digitalisation is to use technological progress for the benefits of our citizens while putting people at its centre”, underlines Ulli Sima, Executive City Counsellor in charge of digitalisation. “Vienna is famous for its outstanding quality of living, and digital technologies can play a major role in this context, for instance by making it easier for people to conduct official business with the Vienna City Administration or to obtain information.”
The Agenda comes with concrete measures to deliver targeted improvements in the day-to-day lives of citizens and to drive technological change while also bearing social responsibility in mind.
A focus on ramping up digital services
Delivering more digital services to citizens is a cornerstone of the Digital Agenda. Every year, the mein.wien portal is to add new services to its portfolio, taking specific life situations of citizens, such as the birth of a child or moving house, into account. These services will be personalised and tailored to citizens’ needs and preferences.
“This is the yardstick against which a municipal administration is measured in 2024”, says CIO Klemens Himpele. “We have already achieved a lot, but we still need to deliver better results with many of our offers.”
The Digital Agenda 2030 also attaches particular importance to fostering digital knowledge in schools, at the workplace and in research. Specific measures, including extensive continued professional development programmes, are being implemented to develop the digital skills of City of Vienna staff.
Protection against downsides
The Digital Agenda also addresses the downsides of digitalisation. Fake news, cybercrime, cyber bullying, deep fakes and a host of other developments are raising concerns among Vienna’s inhabitants, which is why providing protection against such phenomena is high on the list of goals to be achieved. The City of Vienna has already set up a Cyber Crime Helpline for victims of internet crime.
“The migration of crime to the virtual world is an ever-growing problem”, comments Executive City Counsellor Sima. “Vienna’s fundamental tenet always remains the same, be it in the real world or in the digital one: Nobody is being left behind. With this helpline, we have set up a first point of contact for all the people living in Vienna.”
Clearly defined principles for AI
For months now, generative artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT has been the talk of the town. Vienna started early to address this topic as well as other AI-related issues. The Digital Agenda provides clear principles for the use of new technologies in alignment with the goals of digital humanism and responsible and value-based governance.
Another focal point is the promotion of female IT talent. The City of Vienna is taking cooperation projects with businesses further and provides support for programmes that specifically promote female IT talent.
The Digital Agenda 2030 is a key framework that allows the City of Vienna to make the best possible use of the many opportunities offered by digitalisation, to master the challenges resulting from it, and to keep ensuring, also going forward, that nobody will be left behind in the digital world.
