The expansion of digital offers is essential for a sustainable society. Anyone who is allowed to lead Munich into the future in this field has enormous tasks ahead of them – and must assert themselves against issues such as the ecological turnaround.
A few weeks before his departure, the municipal IT officer Thomas Bönig made a remarkable political mark. Personal insults may have played a role in his reckoning, especially with the digital policy of the Greens, but it also highlights an important political field that is often neglected in public attention. Equipping the administration and city schools with up-to-date computer technology, expanding digital offerings for citizens, and data security are central components of a sustainable society.
But when it comes to the distribution of staff and money, cycle paths and local public transport, the ecological turnaround, and the housing shortage dominate thought and action. The subjects of computer technology and digitization sometimes feel like the plagued employees of the IT department in large companies, who are only noticed when something is not working. In Munich, however, this frustration with IT and the lack of digitization had gotten so out of hand that a complete reorganization was initiated. It was right that a separate department for digital issues was created in 2018. Equally needed were new responsibilities for computer technology in schools.
Major tasks await when the administration is reorganized and the digital citizen service is expanded
There was a lot of rumbling in the schools right up to the end, and the responsibility for this has now also landed with the IT department. Many foundations have been laid there in the past four years, and the pandemic has enormously accelerated many implementations, such as the WiFi in the city schools. However, with the conversion of the administration to the electronic file, the expansion of the digital citizen service, the development of functioning apps, enormous tasks await the new boss.
The Greens have the right to propose, and the search alone is likely to be extremely difficult. Comparable jobs in the economy are paid much better. Working in the city also requires a lot of tactical skill and diplomacy – not the strengths of the previous speaker. In the battle for resources in the city, the new leadership must be able to assert itself. At the end of the day, that also means that the new boss can be a friend of open source, as the Greens certainly want it to be. But they should make themselves and their candidate aware: The challenges are still great and the main construction sites of the future job lie elsewhere. It will be extremely exciting to see who will lead Munich into the digital future.