Member Entities

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat)  is the United Nations programme working towards a better urban future. Its mission is to promote socially and environmentally sustainable human settlements development and the achievement of adequate shelter for all. UN-Habitat works with partners to build inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and communities. It promotes urbanization as a positive transformative force for people and communities, reducing inequality, discrimination and poverty; and provides technical assistance, policy advice, knowledge and capacity building to national and local governments in over 90 countries.

“Digital technologies have the potential to serve people, improve public services and contribute to sustainable urbanization, but persistent digital divides remain. By establishing this Accelerator, UN-Habitat and our partners are contributing to building an inclusive digital society, developing digital capacity and fostering digital cooperation, as promoted by the UN Secretary-General”.

—Maimunah Mohd. Sharif, Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat

The United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology (UN-OICT) enables the United Nations Secretariat to deliver effectively on its mandates through the secure, responsible and innovative use of data, information and technology. It defines the strategic direction for information and communications technology (ICT) in the Organization, and it provides oversight of ICT policies, programmes, budgets and decision-making to ensure alignment with Secretariat priorities. 

“With the establishment of UNITAC Hamburg, we aim to support UN-Habitat in developing and deploying people-centred technologies and innovations for sustainable urban development. UN-OICT is committed to realizing the full potential of new and emerging technologies for tackling sustainable urbanization challenges”.

—Patrick Carey, Acting Assistant Secretary-General, UN-OICT

HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU) is a public university in Hamburg, Germany, focusing on architecture, civil engineering and urban planning. Within this collaboration, the role of HCU is to conduct basic and applied research related to data and technology for cities, with an emphasis on the deployment, testing, and evaluation of urban innovation. HCU, especially through the City Science Lab, in cooperation with MIT Media Lab, will bring in its expertise and experience in citizen engagement, computational science/simulation and data visualization as well as its local innovation ecosystem.

“Thanks to the commitment and openness of the city of Hamburg, we as a technical university have been able to test new approaches and smart city technologies in an almost real-life urban lab. We are looking forward to expanding these activities even more in cooperation with UN-Habitat and feel honoured that other cities in the world will profit from our experiences”.

—Stephanie Egerland, Chancellor of HCU