Data competence center for cities and regions

Dr. Alanus von Radecki helps cities and municipalities harness the power of data, accelerating the digital transformation across the whole of Germany.

Two souls in a single breast? It’s a real-world phenomenon, not just a concept from Goethe’s play Faust: Dr. Alanus von Radecki, who works at a start-up in Berlin, is both a sociologist and an engineer. He is driven on the one hand by what makes people tick and how their behavior can be influenced. On the other, he wants to illuminate how technology works in detail. In line with these divergent interests, von Radecki’s company straddles the line between these worlds: How can technological solutions be designed in such a way that society really uses them?

That was the original question that led to the creation of the Data Competence Center for Cities and Regions (DKSR), which was spun off from the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO in Stuttgart in 2021. Since then, DKSR has been helping cities and regions to build digital infrastructure. “Our goal is to act as a kind of catalyst for the digital transformation while keeping the added value for people in mind,” von Radecki explains. How can administration be made more efficient? Cities more livable? How can tax funds be saved? Digitalizing Germany sounds like a thankless task. Studies regularly rank the country last in Europe on this point. The 2024 Digital Report also shows Germany lagging behind.

Most of those surveyed across business, government, administration and the general public do not expect there to be any major progress on that front anytime soon. “It’s definitely a big challenge,” von Radecki admits. All of Germany’s states, cities, and municipalities do their own thing, which leads to a patchwork of different digital solutions. Some are still living in the era of faxes and paper files, while others get tangled up in issues of privacy and data protection or are practically paralyzed by a fear of making mistakes. Von Radecki tends to view the situation as inspiring action: “I love the challenge, and I hope to do more than just churn out paper with my work. I want to be a part of transforming the system in the real world.”

Focusing on potential, not problems

That is a typical thing for him to say. Von Radecki has always been someone who enjoys thinking of tomorrow and beyond, a person with vision. He spent years in charge of Fraunhofer’s Morgenstadt (city of the future) innovation network, focusing on urban issues of the future. That same desire to shape the future and focus on potential rather than problems is also clearly apparent at DKSR. The center has a lot to show for the three years it has been on the market so far. Its clientele includes more than 80 cities in Germany and other countries. The shared mobility concept used in Cologne was optimized by collecting information on all e-scooters and bike share bikes. In Deggendorf, Bavaria, a project has been launched to improve flooding preparation by linking data from precipitation sensors and flood retention basins with weather forecasts and information on soil moisture levels. In Augsburg, data helped with traffic calming in the city center. And in Aarhus, Denmark, an entire city district is currently being overhauled to produce more energy than it uses. DKSR is building the entire data infrastructure for this, including aspects such as the supply of electricity.

Pioneering work with pragmatism

There are a vast number of ideas and examples, most of them closely linked with questions of sustainability and quality of life. “I view data first and foremost as a tool for comfortable, convenient, safe, and sustainable life beyond the digital transformation,” von Radecki says. “Thinking in terms of data and working with data is something administrative agencies aren’t used to yet.” For many, the first step is to take inventory. What data do we have? How can we structure, use, and share it? What problems can it be used to address? Von Radecki knows that sometimes, the main things a particular vision requires are pragmatism and patience. “We’re talking about huge system-level transformations here. That kind of thing doesn’t happen from one day to the next.” But that pioneering work is exactly what motivates him: “This is an important subject, and we have a chance to make a real difference.” Von Radecki says he also owes that outlook to his time at the Fraunhofer institute, where he was surrounded by people with innovative ideas and a desire for a different and brighter future. “It really inspired me and confirmed that I was on the right track in starting a business.”