LDT CitiVERSE EDIC Director Jan Wester joined representatives from leading Spanish cities at the VI Smart City RECI Congress in Málaga to discuss how Local Digital Twins can move beyond technology and become practical tools for anticipating challenges, testing scenarios and supporting better urban decisions.
Die VI Smart City Congress of the Spanish Network of Smart Cities (RECI) brought together municipalities, experts and organisations in Málaga to exchange experiences around the digital transformation of cities.
LDT CitiVERSE EDIC participated through its Director, Jan Wester, who joined the roundtable “The City as a Laboratory: Digital Twins to anticipate, simulate and make better decisions.” The discussion brought together representatives from Málaga, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza, creating an opportunity to compare how different cities are approaching Local Digital Twins and the challenges involved in turning them into useful tools for public administrations.
From technology to better city decisions
One of the central messages of the discussion was that a Digital Twin should not be considered an end in itself. Its value comes from the ability to bring together data and models to help cities better understand what is happening, explore possible scenarios and support decision-making before interventions are implemented in the physical city.
This also means starting with the real needs and challenges of the city, rather than with the technology itself. For LDT CitiVERSE EDIC, these local experiences are particularly important. Cities across Europe are already developing Digital Twins, data platforms and innovative urban services. The opportunity now is to make it easier for them to share what works, reuse solutions and connect their Local Digital Twins through common approaches and interoperable infrastructure.
Connecting Spanish experience with a European ecosystem
The exchange in Málaga also highlighted the importance of collaboration between cities. Rather than developing every capability independently, cities can learn from existing implementations and build on solutions and knowledge already developed elsewhere.
This is at the heart of the LDT CitiVERSE EDIC mission: creating a European ecosystem in which cities and regions can develop and connect Local Digital Twins while reducing fragmentation and supporting interoperability, reuse and implementation at scale. National city networks such as RECI can play an important role in this process by bringing municipalities together, identifying common needs and connecting local and national experience with wider European collaboration. The Málaga Congress provided another opportunity to strengthen this dialogue with Spanish cities and explore how their experience can contribute to — and benefit from — the growing LDT CitiVERSE EDIC ecosystem.
Continuing the conversation
LDT CitiVERSE EDIC would like to thank RECI and the City of Málaga for bringing the smart city community together, as well as Cristina Muñoz Zea, Fernando de Pablo Martín, Ernesto Faubel Cubells, Miguel Ángel García Muro and moderator Emilio Herrera Rebollo for the exchange.
The conversation does not end in Málaga. LDT CitiVERSE EDIC will continue working with cities and national ecosystems across Europe to turn Local Digital Twin innovation into practical, interoperable and reusable solutions.
DE