UW: Can you tell us about OASC’s role in urban management platforms and how it has influenced the architecture we use today?

KC: What is crucial for OASC is that in every development of a data platform, urban platform, or local digital twin, interoperability is taken into account. And interoperability is not just something technical. It is to a certain extent technical. You have to define all the technical requirements that are needed to ensure minimal interoperability between the data and the digital systems that are part of an urban platform.

But interoperability goes beyond technology. It is also organisational, legal, and semantic. So that is what OASC is standing for. OASC is making use of the experiences of its members all around the world to define the so-called “Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms” (MiMs). These mechanisms contain not only technical requirements but also the standards that are in use and that are open to ensure minimal interoperability between systems.

UW: How would you explain the importance of interoperability to someone unfamiliar with the concept? Could you simplify it and highlight how it benefits citizens?

KC: As a citizen, you’ve probably travelled to another city. In your own city, you might use a certain app on your phone or laptop to communicate with your local government, access city information, and so on. But when you travel to another city, you have to download another app. And that new app does not necessarily contain the same information, does not use the same, for instance, payment features as the app that you are using in your city.

Wouldn’t it be much better to have that same app in use wherever you go? And the fact that you can use that same app, would mean that in the back office interoperability is ensured. Interoperability ensures that there’s a seamless connection between data in the background, without you as a user have to act upon it by, for instance, downloading another app.