Strategy Workshops were Held in Transforming Bursa into a Smart City
Stakeholder engagements are of great importance for Transforming Bursa into a Smart City which is carried out in cooperation with Bursa Metropolitan Municipality (BMM). In this intervention, aiming to prepare the Smart City roadmap that will carry Bursa to a more inclusive and participatory urban management, 3 main studies were completed within the scope of the current situation analysis of Bursa and provided input for the strategy development phase. A Benchmarking Study of Bursa with 11 leading cities in the World, 72 Stakeholder Interviews with 164 participants and Citizen Interviews with 62 participants from 8 solution groups, were covered in the study.
The strategy development studies were carried out by the strategic team consisting of Smart City functional area representatives of the Smart Urbanism Branch of BMM and participants from different departments and municipality affiliates. The strategic team, which was specifically formed for this intervention, consisted of Strategy Development Branch within the BBB, Transportation Department, Human Resources and Education Department, Environmental Protection and Control Department, Science Department, Media Affairs and Public Relations Department, Reconstruction and Urbanization Department, Information Technologies Department, Bursa Public Transportation Management (BURULAŞ), Bursa Human Resources Contracting, Training, Consultancy Services, Reconstruction, Construction and Trade (BİNTED), Agricultural Enterprise of BMM, Bursa Water and Sewerage Administration (BUSKİ).
Within the scope of the study, initially, preliminary meetings were held with Smart City functional area representatives; studies were carried out to create strategic objectives through gap analysis and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis (SWOT). The field-oriented meetings supported these efforts with the involvement of relevant strategic team participants of each functional area as well as the Smart City functional area representatives. As the next step, the common mind meetings were held to create a synergy with the Smart City functional area representatives and strategic team participants on each functional area and to reach a common agreement.
Strategy Workshops were organized following the preliminary strategy meetings, field-oriented meetings and common mind meetings. In the strategy workshops, information was given about the findings of the previous stages of the intervention and the studies undertaken in the strategy determination stage and presented a road map for the next stages of the intervention. In terms of the ownership and sustainability of Transforming Bursa into a Smart City, it is of great importance to receive the contributions of stakeholders and to be included in the processes. In this context, in addition to the functional area owners in the Smart Urbanism Branch Directorate, which conducts the strategy studies, and the strategy team focusing on strategy determination, additional workshops were conducted with stakeholders from Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, with external stakeholders of high influence and interest, and specifically with the stakeholders with high representation ability of underrepresented groups.
The first Smart City Strategy Workshop hosted the functional area representatives, the Smart City strategic team, BMM’s executives of various functions and stakeholders from various BMM units. The second Smart City Strategy Workshop involved stakeholders from underrepresented groups and the BMM functional area representatives. The contributions of the stakeholders in the second workshop ensured commitment and transparency for the project’s direction. It was aimed to receive opinions especially with the focus of social inclusion perspective and provide information about the work undertaken. The third Smart City Strategy Workshop hosted external stakeholders and BMM functional area representatives. In all three workshops, stakeholders were informed about the scope of the study; and their comments and prioritizations were received.
During the Strategic workshops, stakeholders evaluated the strategic objectives with an impact / applicability approach. Workshop results were shared with the participants.
Transforming Bursa into a Smart City aims to design faster, more comfortable, and more effective transformation processes for everyone and ensure an inclusive and participatory transformation by offering a smart city focusing on mobility for better urban governance in Bursa.