Celebrating one year of UNITAC Hamburg

A year ago, on 16 March 2021, UNITAC Hamburg was officially launched during a live event.

It has been an exciting year of innovation and collaboration since the official launch of UNITAC Hamburg, the first United Nations Innovation Technology Accelerator for Cities based in Germany's largest port city.

With the financial support of the Government of Germany, UNITAC Hamburg is a partnership between the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat), the United Nations Office for Information and Communication Technology (UN-OICT) and HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU), with the mission to promote open and participatory governance of data and digital platforms, innovations related to mapping, spatial analysis and data visualization as well as promote the principles of people-centred smart cities.

UNITAC Hamburg office at HafenCity quarter, Hamburg, Germany.

Photo by Pauli-Pirat / CC-BY-SA-4.0

During the first half of 2021, major milestones in the development of UNITAC Hamburg were achieved. The recruitment efforts were mostly completed, and today it has a diverse team of 12 experts that include data scientists, urbanists, artists, economists and communications experts. Moreover, the UNITAC Hamburg’s new office space was set up at the vibrant HafenCity quarter right in the heart of Hamburg, Germany.

“UNITAC Hamburg has become the vehicle to strengthen UN-Habitat’s footprint of our people-centered smart cities flagship programme. We are now implementing innovative projects based on the tools, resources and data gathered by the flagship, thereby building unique new knowledge that will allow for innovative urban solutions to be scalable at an accelerated pace for enhanced impact across the globe.”

Katja Schaefer, UNITAC Hamburg Manager a.i.

Three concrete projects were initiated by UNITAC’s newly formed team: An innovative approach to enhance spatial mapping of informal settlements in eThekwini, South Africa; the digital support to the implementation of an Observatory of Public Policies (OPP) in Alagoas, Brazil, and the development of a digital version of UN-Habitat's City Resilience Diagnostic Tool.

Despite the many obstacles encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as travel bans or restrictions related to the physical attendance at assemblies and events, UNITAC Hamburg was present at several events and hosted the Digital Innovation, Climate Change & Cities webinar, featuring six panels and a distinguished lineup of experts. For 2022, UNITAC Hamburg has exciting plans. In April, it will be actively discussing the role of innovation and digital transformation for sustainable urbanisation at the High Level Meeting on the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda in New York, USA and in June, it will be headed to the World Urban Forum in Katowice, Poland, demonstrating and visualizing its innovative tools, technologies and projects to an audience of over 20,000 participants hailing from all sectors within the urban development sphere. UNITAC is also exploring new partnerships with national and local governments in Africa and East Asia, as well as bringing on board new academic institutions and private sector partners through the Urban Academy, which will embark on new exciting research on the nexus of people-centered smart cities, digital technological transformations, and environmental sustainability.

“Thanks to its dedicated team and visionary leadership, UNITAC is on a strong course to strengthen sustainable urban development through the use of data and digital technologies, delivering scalable, global solutions.”

Michael Ibach, Chief of Service, ICT Policy and Compliance, UN-OICT

We look forward to 2022 and beyond, and the innovative solutions to urban challenges that UNITAC and partners will create, in the spirit of fostering inclusive, resilient, safe and sustainable urbanisation.