How is the digital transformation of public administration working in practice? Which projects are creating tangible added value for citizens? And which innovative approaches are driving the modernisation of cities, local authorities and public bodies? The stage programme at the Smart Country Convention 2026 provides answers to these questions.

This year’s Call for Speakers attracted a great deal of interest: The projects come from 40 cities, ten federal states and eight districts, and illustrate the wide variety of digital transformation initiatives in Germany. From all the submissions, 20 best-practice examples were selected to be presented at the Smart Country Convention 2026.

AI, cyber security and sustainable urban development

The selected contributions cover a wide range of topics:

• Automated tax assessment: Hesse is working on automatically generating tax assessment notices in future based on existing data. The project aims to ease the burden on citizens, reduce bureaucracy and significantly speed up administrative processes.
• Round-the-clock administrative services: The state capital, Wiesbaden, demonstrates how ID cards, documents and lost property can be collected securely and flexibly outside opening hours. This reduces the administrative burden whilst improving services for citizens.
• Setting up a business in 24 hours: Berlin, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia are jointly developing a fully digital business start-up process. The aim is to significantly simplify the process of setting up a business through automated workflows and an end-to-end digital process chain.
• Organising administration jointly: Saxony-Anhalt is presenting a model in which local authorities voluntarily pool administrative services. This is intended to ensure resources are used more efficiently, relieve the burden on specialist staff and enable digital solutions to be scaled up more quickly.
• AI for infrastructure projects: IT.NRW demonstrates how artificial intelligence analyses historical building documentation and makes it available in a digital twin. This enables information to be found more quickly and infrastructure projects to be planned and managed more efficiently.
• Heavy rain preparedness using geodata: The Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy is developing a nationwide map highlighting heavy rain hazards. It helps authorities to identify risks at an early stage and plan civil protection measures in a more targeted manner.
• Generative AI in public administration: The City of Munich reports openly on the introduction of its internal AI assistant. The focus is on practical experience and the question of how a technical project became a widely used tool for public administration.
• Local authority digitalisation with digital twins: Several local authorities demonstrate, using concrete examples, how digital technologies are making cities and regions fit for the future. Whilst Eichenzell relies on inter-municipal cooperation and shared digital infrastructure, Halle (Saale), Paderborn, Speyer and Wuppertal demonstrate how digital twins support urban development, urban land-use planning and climate adaptation. In addition, the Rhön-Grabfeld district shows how sensor technology and weather data make winter road maintenance more efficient and sustainable.
• Cybersecurity and digital sovereignty: Various best practices from the federal government, the Länder and local authorities demonstrate how public administrations can become more resilient to crises and cyber-attacks. The ITDZ Berlin, the Kommunale Rechenzentrum Niederrhein (KRZN) and the Berlin Senate Chancellery provide insights into strategies for strengthening cyber-resilience and draw lessons from real-life security incidents. The programme is complemented by approaches from Schleswig-Holstein on the secure use of open source, an AI-supported stress test for disaster planning in the City of Düsseldorf, and an assessment model from the Centre for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS) designed to enhance digital agency.

From public administration to the stage

The selected best practices demonstrate just how diverse the digital transformation of public administration is already today – and what potential there is for a modern, efficient and citizen-centred public administration. From 13 to 15 October, the presentations will be featured on the stages of the Smart Country Convention 2026.

Further information on the programme for the Smart Country Convention 2026 is available here.