Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

During the week dedicated to digital, the "Cyber ​​secure city" project was also launched for the security and training of citizens and public administrations

Milan, November 10 2022 — Five guiding principles for an "inclusive and sustainable" smart city. The Board for Technological Innovation and Digital Transformation of the Municipality of Milan proposes them in the "Manifesto for digital Milan", presented today at Palazzo Marino in the presence of Mayor Giuseppe Sala on the occasion of the opening meeting of the Milan Digital Week, the week of events dedicated to technological innovation, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. The guidelines for the digital transformation of the city outlined by the Board describe an innovation which is "a necessary condition to grow, evolve and compete, also for cities and communities", founded "on collaboration and the creation of partnerships between public and private", inclusive and non-divisive or "within the reach of everyone" , open to "transparent and ethical participatory co-creation processes" and with "a clear definition of the rules of good conduct that must be commonly accepted and shared, also through collaboration with the large aggregation platforms of the big digital players, so that digital society can progress with respect for others and for the common good". Hence the request for "a Pact or a Code if not a Constitution", we read in the Manifesto, to "define the direction that can be given to technological developments", because "the freedom to carry out technological innovation must be reconciled with produce a positive impact on social dynamics, influencing them, directing them, determining them and with their sustainability, also generating a positive impact on the environment".

"The city of Milan – states the mayor Giuseppe Sala – is experiencing a strong push towards innovation, accelerated first by the pandemic and now prompted by new challenges, by the growing participation of citizens in online services and by the initiatives supported by the PNRR for the digital transition, for which the Municipality has projects financed for around 15 million euros. We combine investments in infrastructure and connectivity with interventions to provide spaces and opportunities for growth for those who contribute to making the city more livable, following the idea of ​​a smart city that continues to guide us: the one that combines innovation and inclusion. We want to ensure that Milan is an engine of 'development of limits' and the first to overcome are those that prevent people from accessing services and opportunities".

"Digital transformation – explains Layla Pavone, coordinator of the Board for technological innovation and digital transformation of the Municipality of Milan – represents a great resource for the lives of people and communities, but every initiative must be inspired by today's smart city and of tomorrow to the principle of equal access to the services offered by technology and the skills to use them. It is essential that innovation always has the person at its centre, from the design of services to their provision, and does not exclude anyone".

On this basis, the "Cyber ​​secure city" project, dedicated to the security and digital training of citizens and public administrations, kicks off during Digital week. This is a further initiative of the "Milan Smart city alliance", an alliance promoted by Assolombarda together with 12 associated companies which since 2020 has brought together the public and private sectors on the issues of smart city development. With the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the municipal administration and the Milan Smart city alliance, the creation of a platform begins today which will make content and tools developed by Cisco, Fastweb, A2a and Accenture to protect them from the risks of improper use of digital tools. Furthermore, for the technical staff of public administrations, an alert service against cyber threats and attacks and dedicated training courses will be launched.

The Municipality of Milan will be the first public user and ambassador, to promote its use by citizens and other entities in the metropolitan area.

To present it, to Palazzo Marino, Gioia Ghezzi, vice-president of Assolombarda and president of the Milan Smart city alliance, Fabio Florio, Cisco representative within the Milan Smart city alliance and Guido Arnone, head of the Technological and Digital Innovation Directorate of the Municipality and member of the Board together with Claudio Farina, Donatella Sciuto, Lorenzo Maternini, Paola Generali, Paolo Coppola and Stefano Achermann.

"In the last two years we have developed several projects in partnership with the Municipality of Milan and the metropolitan city in areas such as digitalisation and the use of data, the environment and energy, sustainable mobility and new ways of working, with the aim of promoting a model of urban development based on innovation, sustainability and collaboration – declares Gioia Ghezzi – With the Cyber ​​secure city initiative we want to draw attention to another fundamental theme for an increasingly smart city, that of IT security. By pooling companies' wealth of training on the topic, we aim to give citizens the appropriate tools to use digital infrastructures. Human error, in fact, is responsible for 95% of cyber attacks, a circumstance that makes clear the need for an IT security strategy based on training and informing people. We are convinced that citizens who are more aware of digital tools make a city smarter and safer."

Milan Digital week 2022