We at the City Science Lab consider Hamburg our urban testbed. In almost all projects we collaborate closely with multiple municipal stakeholders and develop and co-create tools based on the local needs of Hamburg's administration. In our sister Lab UNITAC - a collaboration with the United Nations - we not only develop new digital solutions, but also adapt and localize our existing tools to different cities with a special focus on vulnerable environments. In our presentation we will showcase the different approaches applied in our projects. First, we look at two existing tools developed originally within Hamburg: we will explore how DIPAS is currently being further developed, and how COSI is deployed within the Ukrainian context. Lastly, we present the development journey of innovative data-driven approaches in Namibia. 

Case studies: DIPAS Hamburg (Digital Participation System), COSI Ukraine (Cockpit Social Infrastructure), Data-driven planning in Namibia

DIPAS Hamburg

DIPAS is a digital citizen participation platform in Hamburg, Germany that enables citizens to access digital city maps, aerial photos, and 3D models to provide localized feedback on urban planning projects. With 115 projects deployed and over 35,000 contributions and comments collected, there's a growing need for structuring and processing this data. To address this, a digital toolbox called "DIPAS Analytics," equipped with natural language processing models, is being developed and offered as an open-source platform to cities and municipalities.

COSI Ukraine|CoSI is an open-source webGIS software that facilitates discussion and decision-making among stakeholders by visualising pertinent data on a map, analysing the interrelationship between disparate datasets, and simulating various scenarios for social and urban infrastructure development. The project, "Digital Tools and Capacity for Inclusive, Smart, and Resilient Urban Recovery in Ukraine," has the objective of deploying, adapting, and further developing CoSI in three pilot locations in Ukraine. We intend to disseminate our current findings from Makariv.

Data-driven planning in Namibia
Our project in Namibia aims to build digital and data capacity of the national and local governments to support urban decision making. We are working with various stakeholders active in the field of sustainable urban development - such as GIZ and the Namibia Housing Action Group – supporting them in their efforts to collect and analyse data to better understand the dynamics of informal settlements. Additionally, we are working together with local authorities to co-develop digital solutions and processes, enabling them to make better decisions, plan better, and ultimately deliver better services to the community. In our presentation, we introduce our approach and share our experiences with the co-creation process.