Smart City Project Jena at the family festival "Your day in paradise" 2026

The Smart City Project Jena was represented at this year's family festival "Dein Tag im Paradies" with its own offer. Together with ProbierLaden Jena, the team provided information about current projects, digital offerings and opportunities for participation.

The range of the Smart City project was visible at the joint stand: from the ProbierLaden and ProbierMobil as low-threshold contact points for everyday digital questions to the Jena Digital Innovation Hub JEDI and projects such as the urban data platform WISSENsAllmende, the digital agent for schools and the Lobeda smart district. The discussions showed that many people are particularly interested in how digital services can be used in practice and what added value they bring to everyday life.

The discussions focused on everyday questions: Where can I get support if I want to better understand digital applications? How can citizens use the city's digital services? What role does data play in sustainable urban development? And how can children, families, schools or older people benefit from smart city projects? It became clear that digitalization becomes understandable above all when it is linked to specific life situations.

The focus was not only on technical applications, but above all on the question of how digitalization can make everyday life easier for local people. Many visitors took the opportunity to find out more, contribute their own ideas and talk to the Smart City team. The direct exchange in particular made it clear which topics move people and where digital services need to be made understandable, accessible and practical.

Children were also able to approach the topic in a playful way. The Smart City Memory and the coloring pictures in particular made it clear that urban development does not have to remain abstract, but can also be communicated creatively, vividly and in a family-friendly way. The memory game allowed different projects to be discovered and linked together. The coloring pictures invited younger visitors to creatively implement their own ideas of a city of the future.

With its focus on encounters, participation, the environment and sustainability, the family festival provided a suitable framework for presenting Smart City topics in a low-threshold way. The day made it clear that sustainable urban development is not created by new technologies alone, but through participation, exchange and trying things out together.

The Smart City Project Jena would like to thank all visitors for their interest, the discussions and the many inspiring ideas.