Focus on digital sovereignty: Smart City Jena at the 5th Thuringian E-Government Congress

On September 12, 2025, the Thuringian Ministry for Digital Affairs and Infrastructure hosted the 5th Thuringian E-Government Congress in Erfurt. Around 500 participants from state and municipal administrations and public institutions came together to discuss current developments in administrative digitalization.

Focus topic: digital sovereignty

This year's congress was all about digital sovereignty - the ability of administrations to shape their digital infrastructures, technologies, services and data in an independent, self-determined and future-proof manner. The focus was on

• Own digital infrastructures
• Open standards and open source solutions
• Practical examples from administrations
• Workshops on digital applications, IT operations, services for citizens and companies and AI training courses

Smart City Jena on site

The Smart City team was represented with its own stand. Project manager Vanessa Huber and sub-project managers Domenique Dölz and Stefan Schwarz took the opportunity to engage in intensive discussions with representatives from administration, politics, science and business. Together with JenaDigital e.V, which also had a stand on site, the team presented current approaches from the Smart City project and took away important ideas for further work in Jena.

"The congress showed once again: Digitalization can only succeed together - courageously, networked and practically," said overall project manager Dorothea Prell, summing up her impressions.

Networking as a success factor

The many practical examples at the digitalization marketplace were particularly valuable, showing how open source approaches and open standards are already being used in administration today. The impulses from the panels on sovereign workplaces and open source infrastructures also provided orientation for future work in Jena.

Conclusion

The 5th Thuringian eGovernment Congress highlighted how crucial networking and collaboration are for the digital transformation. For the Jena Smart City project, participation was an important step in contributing its own experience and picking up new ideas.

Many thanks to the Thuringian Ministry for Digital Affairs and Infrastructure for the invitation and the excellent organization of this forward-looking congress.