On 8 April 2014, the municipal council commissioned the city administration to develop an overall concept for promoting Karlsruhe as the “internet capital”. The Science Office of Stadtmarketing Karlsruhe GmbH was commissioned to coordinate the overall concept, which was launched as “Digital Agenda Karlsruhe 300+” and subsequently communicated as “karlsruhe.digital”. The overall concept focussed on marketing and communication in order to establish a position for Karlsruhe as the Internet capital and to communicate the IT location.
As early as the first working meeting of representatives from politics, administration, science and business, the experts agreed that in times of digital change, an approach based on marketing only would not be sufficient to fulfil the task assigned by the municipal council. According to the consensus, the topic requires a holistic approach.
In a comprehensive and cooperative approach involving all relevant stakeholders from city administration, municipal companies, business clusters and networks as well as Karlsruhe’s scientific institutions and IT and high-tech companies, an overall concept was subsequently developed for Karlsruhe as an ICT (information and communication technology) location.
Since then, the initiative has connected stakeholders from science, business, culture and administration to promote Karlsruhe as a driver of digitalisation – for competitiveness, livability and sovereignty.