The MENA DSS is a hybrid event format that imparts up-to-date knowledge in the field of digital transformation. Based on case studies and through contacts in the field, participants can acquire skills during their stay in Germany that they can implement in concrete transformation projects in their home countries.
As in 2022, the CAIS was represented as the NRW Institute for Digitisation Research with a contribution on the topic of “Smart City”. In the Barmer Bahnhof in Wuppertal, Prof. Dr. Christoph Bieber, head of the research programme “Digital Democratic Innovations”, and his colleagues Jana Baum and Anne Goldmann, in their workshop “Reflecting the Smart City – MENA Region, Ruhr Area and beyond”, drew a bow from the Ruhr area via the MENA region to the USA in order to compare smart city concepts internationally. Through group work and in a discussion round with the participants of the Summer School, they entered into a dialogue about strategies and challenges of sustainable urban development.

