October 4 (SeeNews) - The digital transformation strategy of the Bulgarian capital city has two main prongs: redesigning public services and internal work processes, and involving local startups in an innovative upgrade of the social and operational processes, Gencho Kerezov, Sofia deputy mayor in charge of digitalisation, told SeeNews.
Building up on this strategy, municipal authorities have started work on an environment, social, governance (ESG) taxonomic analysis, which would help it make sure that its projects are compliant with the European Union's new financing requirements for sustainable development, Kerezov explained for SeeNews in a recent interview.
"The digital transformation strategy comprises what is required to make Sofia a digital city but we are looking at these things in a much wider perspective. It is very important that we test innovations and technologies, and that we allow businesses to reach us directly," Kerezov said. "The municipality should be the No. 1 client of innovative businesses, those value-added businesses which, going forward, can be a driver of the economy."
Sofia, a city of 1.2 million, started work on its digital transformation strategy with over a hundred stakeholders as part of an EU-funded project in 2018. In September 2020, the municipality prepared an action plan, outlining the steps needed to make the transformation happen.
"It was a complex matter to work out how exactly to engage businesses, how to open up the municipality to businesses. Together with the European Investment Bank (EIB) and global consultancy Deloitte we have been working on a system for evaluation of projects' compliance with funding requirements. During the discussions, we had the idea to design a special programme for innovations, and that is how the concept of the Sandbox was born," Kerezov recalled.
THE INNOVATIONS SANDBOX
The Sandbox for innovations became the first step in the capital city's digital transformation action plan.
Its concept is simple - the Sofia municipality acts like a VC fund, investing in various projects aimed at improving the city environment, testing and validating decisions with the objective that most of them should be scaled for implementation throughout the city. The municipality takes a minimum financial risk and at the same time it offers startups an opportunity for innovations in areas holding challenging issues.
Startups that join the Sandbox can get up to 30,000 levs ($17,800/15,300 euro) each from the municipal budget for the development of a pilot project. If it proves to be successful, a further big scale investment is undertaken making the service applicable for the whole city.
"The big advantage for businesses is that when you have Sofia, Europe’s 14th biggest city, as your client, and you have a positive reference for your project, this gives you a definite edge when you sit down to talks with investors, other city authorities and other clients. Some of the companies with which we implemented pilot projects now have very powerful B2C campaigns with the prototype of the solution and they are already selling it to private clients," Kerezov explained.
However, he admitted that it is very difficult for a startup to get into the silo of the state administration. "Thankfully, we have the support of the business community and the startup scene," he added.
Within the Sandbox, the municipality has already implemented four pilot projects. A kindergarten in Sofia, the biggest in the country, was transformed into a smart building and now generates its own energy from renewable sources, its managers overseeing the whole process. Another project made it possible for the teachers at the same kindergarten to monitor the quality of air indoors and receive notifications when the levels of carbon dioxide and fine dust particles rise.
The successful implementation of the pilot projects gives the Sofia municipality the validation it needs to know that it is on the right track.
SCALING UP
"We are now certain that this programme is efficient and next year we will try to expand it. We want to transform all kindergartens and possibly all schools in Sofia in line with this model," Kerezov said.
"We want to structure projects on a bigger scale, looking at this process through the prism of the EU’s ESG requirements and making a preliminary assessment of their effect based on the data we have collected. In this way, we will be able to talk not only about innovations but also about sustainable development, and this is the logical development that we want to follow every time," he added.
However, this would require much more money than Sofia municipality can provide from its own budget, therefore the municipality will seek financing from EU programmes with the support of the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Kerezov is certain that securing the EU's financial support for a programme that is compliant with all ESG requirements and whose efficiency has been validated is a feasible task.
"I strongly hope that we will be ready with the preparatory work by the first quarter of next year so that we can apply for funding in the spring and launch the programme next year."
In line with this plan, the Sofia municipality plans to launch five or six more projects, building up on the pilot projects, which it will validate through the Sandbox.
"We see that this way of doing things is well received, it is logical for both the public and our international partners, helping us elaborate the digital transformation strategy and clarify our vision for the development of Sofia."
A MUNICIPAL OFFICE IN THE DIGITAL CLOUD
Together with the State e-Government Agency, two other municipalities and Burgas regional administration, Sofia is working on an EU-funded project for developing common infrastructure that would allow for automation of administrative services.
"We compiled a list of 50 e-services that we plan to automate entirely. This will cut considerably the time needed to provide these services to citizens and businesses," Kerezov said.
As part of the project, a fully-automated electronic service for change of address will be launched by the end of the year.
"When a business makes an innovation that customers like, other businesses follow suit, and then the state and supranational institutions start to apply it in their policies, regulations and laws. This is what is happening now with digital transformation. Some five years ago the business started working in shared space, in digital teams that can be quickly assembled and disassembled. This is what we want to do by the end of our mandate – to replicate the entire structure of Sofia municipality in a digital cloud, in a digital space where each municipal officer can have an office, allowing us to communicate quickly without all the paperwork."
This action will address two of the most challenging issues the public and businesses have in their dealings with municipal authorities – the lack of transparency in procedures which also creates grounds for bad practices, and the cumbersome and time consuming procedures, the digitalisation chief of Sofia municipality concluded.
($=1.6847 Bulgarian levs)