The Eurocities Digital Forum was held on 15-17 April, hosted by Sofia Municipality, focusing on “Key Technologies for Future-Proof Cities: from Data Spaces to Digital Twins”.. During the forum, city officials and experts have gathered to explore how to build a ‘common digital culture’ that empowers all people to understand, question and shape the digital systems around them. This means that everyone can benefit from the digital world, understand how data works, and make informed decisions rather than passively accept what is designed for them.
During the forum’s opening session, Ivan Goychev, Deputy Mayor for Digitalisation at Sofia Municipality, stated: “We need to speak the language of everyone, giving them a say in decisions that affect their communities.”
Prof. Dessislava Petrova-Antonova, lead of the local deployment of deployEMDS, participated in the Session “Best practices from cities’ digital twins for climate resilience”. She explained how data sharing supports the development of the Sofia urban digital twin, addressing challenges related to transport, environmental pollution, climate change, and energy. In this session, showcases from four cities were presented: Sofia, Rotterdam, Leipzig, and Burgas.
GATE Institute hosted a site visit, which began with a welcome from the GATE (Big Data for Smart Society) Director, Prof. Sylvia Ilieva, and a brief introduction to the GATE Institute’s mission and research.
GATE’s planned programme included presentations and live demonstrations showcasing the Institute’s expertise in Artificial Intelligence, Digital Twins, data spaces, and data-intensive systems, and highlighting how these technologies are applied to real-world city challenges, offering a direct look at how data-driven solutions support smarter cities. The deployEMDS project was presented by Kaloyan Karamitov with a focus on Sofia use cases related to the development of a new mobility-as-a-service application based on shared data from Sofia Urban Mobility Centre and micro-mobility operators, as well as walkability scenarios for user-centric pedestrian routing.
The data space’s technical components and the added value for participants were demonstrated through a local testbed deployed on the GATE infrastructure. The attendees became familiar with the data offering, which showcased datasets on air pollution, public transport, road networks, and pedestrian movement. The respective data products were explained along with metadata, usage, and access policy definition.
As digitalisation accelerates, the challenge extends beyond technological advancement and connectivity to encompass issues of trust, equity, and inclusion. The benefits of digital transformation require careful attention to data sharing, placing additional responsibility on cities to lead and shape the trajectory of digital change.