On 11 and 12 February 2019, representatives of 13 organizations from five European countries met in Athens for the kick-off meeting of a new project: “DevOps for Smart Cities“.
It is a three-year Erasmus+ KA2 Sector Skills Alliances project, and one of the largest project consortia we have ever participated in.
Main objectives of the meeting, hosted by Hellenic Open University, were to introduce the partners to each other, their respective organizations and their respective experience in planning in general and on the Smart Cities theme in particular, as well as planning the work for the next three years.
What is the topic of the project?
The two main themes of the project are already evident in the title: DevOps and Smart Cities.
What does DevOps mean?
The word DevOps is a compound of development (development) e operations (operations), and in software production it is a methodology that combines the development phase (Dev) and the operational phase, to shorten the development cycle of a software.
It is an agile and iterative approach, in which development and operations specialists collaborate closely from the beginning to develop, formulate, test and improve the product.
What is a Smart City?
There are many definitions of what a Smart City is, but we propose the following:
“A smart city uses digital technology to connect, protect and improve the lives of its citizens.”
The development and operations specialists behind the construction of Smart Cities are:
- Technical staff
- Manager
- Support staff
What will the project consist of?
The Smart-DevOps project addresses the shortage of digital and transferable skills in the smart cities sector of local public authorities.
The project is aimed at those working on Smart City strategies and tools, such as ICT and technical staff of Municipalities, applying the DevOps approach to their work.
This project will propose a methodology to implement the DevOps approach in Smart Cities. It will also lead to the development of job profiles for Smart Cities DevOps professionals.
The project will deal with:
- Mapping the training needs of smart cities Development and Operations professionals working in municipal ICT departments (ICT project managers, programmers, technicians, web-designers, system administrators, planners, etc.).
- Create IFT curricula combining digital and transferable skills, including a MOOC, Free Educational Resources (OERs), an e-learning platform, training face-to-face and internships.
- Pilot the developed curricula and evaluate the experience.
- Disseminate and exploit the project results outside the partnership. ALL DIGITAL he will be responsible for directing the dissemination operations.
Some key elements:
- The project will strengthen collaboration between VET (Education and Professional Training) operators, municipalities and IT suppliers of smart cities.
- The eCF (European e-Competence Framework) will be used to describe profiles.
- A mapping exercise to ESCO-ISCO08 (European and International Standard Classifications of Occupations) will be carried out.
- EQAVET (the European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training) will be used to ensure the quality of the training provision.
- The project will connect to the EQF / NQF (European and National Frameworks for Qualifications) ea ECVET (European Recognition System for Vocational Education and Training) to facilitate mobility and recognition.
Who are the partners?
The project qualifies as a Sector Skills Alliance in which universities, VET operators, companies and national standardization bodies collaborate in the definition and development of the necessary skills in an emerging and very dynamic sector: Smart Cities.
- University of Thessaly (UTH), Greece – project coordinator
- Free Hellenic University, Greece, and his DIASsy Research Group – member of ALL DIGITAL
- Ethniko Systima Ypodomon Poiotitas (Elot), Greece
- Digital Cities Of Central Greece, Greece
- University of Nicosia, Cyprus
- City of Foligno Study Center Association, Italy – member of ALL DIGITAL
- Nicosia Development Agency (ANEL) LTD, Cyprus
- States General Association of Innovation, Italy – member of ALL DIGITAL
- Europaischer Verband Beruflicher Bildungstrager (EVBB), Germany
- Hochschule der Wirtschaft für Management, Germany
- Bundesverband der Träger beruflicher Bildung eV, Germany
- ALL DIGITAL AISBL, Belgium
- K-DIGITAL SRL, Italy
