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The Hanseatic Silicon Valley? New digital centre to be built in Hamburg

Watch out, Berlin. Construction on a digital centre in the Hanseatic city state is set to start in a few days, attracting big companies and start-ups alike.

Published: 3 May 2018 15:59 CEST
The Hanseatic Silicon Valley? New digital centre to be built in Hamburg
An conceptual image of the new hub. Image: Hammerbrooklyn.DigitalCampus

The hub, located between Hamburg’s main railway station and HafenCity quarter, is being billed as a place where innovative solutions for the city are to be devised and tested out.

Set to open in early 2019, “Hammerbrooklyn.DigitalCampus” is meant to be a place where companies, start-ups, and movers and shakers in various industries can work together with city authorities on site and develop ideas for Hamburg's digital future. 

Companies such as Deutsche Bahn, Siemens and Volkswagen have already signed up with plans to work on mobility concepts, having rented out a space at the centre for at least five years, reports the Hamburger Morgenpost.

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“The guiding idea at Hammerbrooklyn is to develop, try out and learn something new,” co-founder of the project, Mathias Müller-Using, told the Hamburger Abendblatt.

“This is where the city of the future is to be conceived,” Müller-Using added.

Image: Hammerbrooklyn.DigitalCampus

The ambitious and costly project, which will profit from a total of €150 million in investments over the next ten years, has generally been met with applause from politicians, according to the Hamburger Abendblatt.

Frank Horch (independent), the Hanseatic city’s senator for economics, has encouraged businesses to get involved.

“Hamburg must be innovative and creative to be internationally competitive,” Horch said, adding that “it is especially important that companies and organizations seize the challenges and opportunities of digitalization for their own benefit.”

Head of Hamburg's central Mitte district, Falko Droßmann of the Social Democrats (SPD), said he was already looking forward to the completion of the hub in 2019.

Pilot projects at the centre will focus on smart city and smart mobility concepts, including augmented and virtual reality, block chain technology and 3D printing.

These projects will play a key role in implementing Hamburg’s strategy as host of the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress in 2021.

Once the 50,000-square-metre hub opens its doors members of the public will also be able to visit.

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TECH

Danish government party demands ban on messaging app Telegram

The senior party in Denmark’s coalition government, the Social Democrats, says it wants to ban the messaging app Telegram in Denmark.

Published: 4 June 2024 06:47 CEST
Danish government party demands ban on messaging app Telegram

Abuse in the form of “shaming” (Danish: udskamning) is frequently directed at women with Middle Eastern backgrounds within large Danish groups on the app, and the Social Democrats therefore want it blocked in the country, equality minister Trine Bramsen and Mayor of Odense Peter Rahbek Juel said in an interview with newspaper Berlingske earlier this week.

“We have unfortunately seen some terrible examples and a lot of examples of the social media Telegram in particular being used to humiliate young ethnics [minorities, ed.] – particularly young women – and to shame them, well aware that it could have the consequence that their families exclude them or even do worse,” Bramsen said to news wire Ritzau.

The party also wants to clamp down on videos that intentionally provoke “negative social control”, they also said.

The Social Democrats have long held that people from minority backgrounds who live in Denmark can be subjected to social control, for example by parents, families or peer groups, which prevents them from fully engaging in society.

Bramsen and Juel said that criminal punishments should be raised for sharing images or videos where there is an “expectation” that they could result in “serious consequences related to negative social control”.

The party shared what it considers to be some of the offending content with Berlingske. It said this was posted by “apparently Danish boys and girls as well as young people with non-Danish ethnic heritage”. The examples come from a Telegram group with over 10,000 members.

Bramsen said that a ban Telegram would “to a greater degree” be an EU matter, but that she still wants to block the app in Denmark as soon as possible.

“Against other types of … illegal content, it’s possible to put up some filters. It will be a case for the courts in the end. But we must, through legislation, ensure that the right laws are in place,” she said.

“I don’t think we can look the other way as platforms are used for crime again and again and put young people’s lives in danger,” she said.

“You can ask yourself the obvious question of whether we should transfer the same legislation that applies in the physical world where you can close places down and apply bans on assembling at places where crime is repeatedly committed,” she said.

Telegram was launched in Russia in 2013.

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