Climate change, poverty, migration, and lack of trust in government: this era is full of challenges. These challenges are transforming the city we can see, smell, and touch – the physical city – and the city as a community of people living together: the social city. And there is a third major change, the digital transformation, which increasingly leads to a digital city. The municipality of Rotterdam assumes a continuously interdependent social, physical, and digital reality. 

Opportunities and challenges

The opportunities and threats make it more urgent for every organization to incorporate the digital reality as a standard consideration when determining the challenges it faces. The municipality of Rotterdam uses the following three principles: 

• Society, not big tech, determines the course
• Digital inclusion: No one left behind
• Data belongs to everyone

Open Urban Platform

The municipality began developing the Open Urban Platform. This platform is the hub of the digital infrastructure that provides all Rotterdam residents with a safe, responsible, and transparent digital environment. It is a platform created by and for all residents, businesses, and organizations in Rotterdam.

In setting up the Open Urban Platform, the municipality employs the Digital Twin concept: all current data about Rotterdam is brought together in one common location. This allows everyone to use, add, and share data. Thus, the Open Urban Platform serves as the foundation for new applications, services, information dissemination, and participation.

For example, a housing corporation could provide 3D information of buildings to the fire department, enabling them to fight fires more effectively. Or residents might participate in a pilot project where they design in 3D for the redesign of a square in their neighbourhood.

The Open Urban Platform with Digital Twin is available for Rotterdam residents, businesses, and organizations. Explore the Digital Ecosystem here: Digital Ecosystem | Hubs | Rotterdam

Rotterdam Citiverse

Currently, the Open Urban Platform with Digital Twin connects only the physical and digital worlds. This means it enables data exchange for elements like buildings, trees, and streetlights – in short, everything you encounter in the physical city.

The next step is for people to also become part of the digital city. For instance, residents could create social profiles or personal data vaults on the platform, allowing them to become “residents” of the digital city or explore Rotterdam digitally. This setup would enable a resident to apply for a permit for a dormer window, drawn onto a digital copy of their own house. In this way, the social, physical, and digital realities are intertwined. 

Digital Framework

The Citiverse is not a new technological development but rather a concept to articulate the potential societal impact when various new technologies converge. For instance, what will it mean when Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and Virtual Reality start to reinforce each other? What will be the impact of this on the city? Rotterdam is exploring what the Citiverse entails and how the future city will look as these worlds increasingly converge. This raises many questions, such as:

•  What does this mean for municipal services? 
• How do we ensure everyone can participate and benefit from the opportunities? 
• How do we create a safe digital environment? 

The primary goal is to present a new digital framework by 2027. This framework will further outline the implications of the Citiverse on Rotterdam and its residents, including the role of the municipality.

Rotterdam collaborates with many national and international organizations and networks to achieve this, such as the European project ‘x-CITE,’ in which Rotterdam and various European partners further define the Citiverse concept. Within the municipal organization, there is also coordination and collaboration across various programs.

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