Nov 5, 2019
Cyber Security and Digital Integration in Smart Cities, Berlin 2019
This year I had a chance to represent Lithuanian Expat Organisation in Berlin at Smart City Convention 2019. I was moderating the session on Cyber Security and Digital Integration in Smart Cities.
Smart Country Convention 2019, is a place were all actors from the digital economy, politics, administration, associations, and science come together to face the challenges of digitisation in Germany.
In Cyber Security and Digital Integration in Smart Cities session I got a chance to dive into the topic of cybersecurity with a Technical consultant at NRD Cyber Security, Rimtautas Cerniauskas, Director of Administration at Vilnius City Municipality Povilas Poderskis, Key Account Manager at Alna Software, Kristina Kikaliene and Senior Product Marketing Manager at Trafi Juste Rastenyte. It was fascinating to have all these experts on one panel.
I knew that great moderator must be prepared, ask the right questions, pay attention what each of them has to offer. For instance, we started with a prtesentation delivered by Mr. Černiauskas who has more than 26 years of experience in IT, and has served as Director of cyber security and telecommunication service under Ministry of National Defense of Lithuania, member of management board of NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence and held other senior management positions at the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. He talked about main IoT security risks, and crisis management plan.
After, Director of Administration at Vilnius City Municipality Povilas Poderskis discussed hsi experience of managing the smart city. Cities around the globe are having to become digitally smarter to maintain economic, social and environmental sustainability. In Vilnius more than 200 different city cervices are smart. City council needs to innovate to keep up with the demands of digital-savvy populations generating masses of data and wanting to connect with their surroundings. However, who is making sure these processes are safe? Sadly, often cybersecurity is seen as “nice to have” rather than “must have”. So how can we change this public attitude?
Key Account Manager at Alna Software, Kristina Kikaliene talked about projects they implemented in Vilnius, Lithuania and Bergen, Norway. Apparently, even Scandinavian cities are transferring the knowledge gained in Lithuania.
Senior Product Marketing Manager at Trafi Juste Rastenyte introduced us to the hottest app in Berlin- Jelbi. Lithuanian technology platform for mobility Trafi, and BVG, the main public transport agency in Berlin, launched a new multimodal app called Jelbi, connecting all types of mobility in the city. Trafi platform provides software that allows our partners to connect, understand and manage their mobility ecosystems. As Dr. Henrik Haenecke Former Management Board Finances, Digitisation and Sales at BVG, Berlin said
“ Jelbi is the world’s largest MaaS deployment today. This is the first time in the history of Berlin that everyone who wants to travel in the city has access to all different types of mobility in one solution. ”
The discussion that followed clearly showed that there are still many things to be done to achieve Germanys ambitious plans to digitalise most of their Administrative Services by 2022. However, many things can happen if application developers will start to innovate and include cybersecurity as important component.
