09 Jun Final consortium meeting in Hamburg 23-25th May 2022
HCU Hamburg and the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg invited the MICADO consortium to Hamburg for the final consortium meeting. The meeting was a great opportunity for project partners to meet in person after a long time that had been marked by virtual meetings only. The meeting also had an important purpose: to do a reality check, reflecting on the original vision for MICADO and comparing it with the end result of the MICADO solution.
As pointed out by the project partners, the MICADO project was a great learning opportunity for researchers and developers, who had to work together closely to develop a tool that is fit for purpose. In this sense, MICADO introduced researchers to the reasoning and language of software development. At the same time, it brought developers closer to the needs of end-users which had been carefully carved out during the co-creation sessions. Furthermore, the project and its ambition to create a solution that is implemented and used after the end of the project, forced the project team to delve into the business world, calculating cost-benefit scenarios of the MICADO solution and engaging in marketing activities. As such, MICADO developed a life on its own, going beyond what the project partners had imagined.
As the project reaches its final month, the consortium is working tirelessly to finalize a sustainability strategy of MICADO. We assign responsibilities for disseminating the results of the project, promote the uptake of MICADO in cities and municipalities around Europe and establish a MICADO caretaker community that remains available for maintenance of the technical solution and acts as a point of reference for future uptakers of the MICADO solution. In some respect, we find ourselves not at the end of MICADO, but just at the beginning.