As part of the Nordic Circle pavilion at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan — the world’s largest live event — we were a part of the Nordic Metaverse Day, hosted by Business Finland, where we could share how we’re shaping the future of digital, inclusive cities.
Highlights from the session:
Keynote: “Digital visits to a smart destination” by Johan De Paoli, Göteborg & Co ️Showcasing Gothenburg as a pilot city for inclusive digital innovation to an international public ️Inspiration and feedback from partners and participants, paving the way for new collaborations across borders
A big thank you to Business Finland, Laura Olin and Pipsa Pullola for highlighting the project, and to our partners Göteborg & Co and Younite AI for making this journey possible.
Watch the highlights here!
Previous video
This session provides an overview of Europe’s work on interoperability through the Minimum Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs) – a set of open standards and guidelines for sharing and reusing data across cities – and the Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative, which develops digital twins of the Earth to support climate and environmental decision-making.
Our project partners Mila Koeva, University of Twente, and Desislava Petrova-Antonova, GATE Institute, will present how the CU project aligns with and can contribute to MIM7 and MIM8, particularly in relation to geodata and Local Digital Twins. The session will also highlight how these frameworks connect to broader European developments and what this means for building scalable, interoperable and inclusive digital solutions for cities.
We are happy to have Jan Wester, Director of the LDT CitiVERSE EDIC attending this session. Jan will provide an overview of the LDT Citiverse EDIC and its strategic direction, exploring how governance models, interoperability frameworks and European data spaces connect Local Digital Twins, the Citiverse projects and shared digital infrastructure for cities.
The session will also address why the EU is leveraging the EDIC instrument and how it differs from traditional EU projects. You will gain insights into how EDIC governance can support coordination between countries, cities and European initiatives, while shared standards help reduce the risk of vendor lock-in.
The presentation highlights how different building blocks of the European Citiverse are beginning to align, including the LDT Toolbox and the MIMs. It also reflects on how the EDIC can contribute to a more predictable European market for interoperable digital solutions for cities.
This session provides a structured overview of the ethical governance model and legal safeguards guiding our project. We will review GDPR compliance, responsible AI oversight, data processing routines, and the protection of vulnerable groups, as defined in the project’s ethics commitments. The objective is to reinforce accountability, transparency, and alignment with EU regulatory requirements throughout implementation and reporting.
Monica Ek, representing WP1, will present the project's ethics governance, will lead the session and outline how ethical and legal safeguards are implemented across the project.
Kim Lantto, City of Gothenburg, Democracy and Citizen Administration, will contribute with insights into the practical implementation of citizen dialogue and data protection, highlighting how legal safeguards translate into operational routines and technical decision-making within the project.
