Together with Duisburg's mayor Sören Link, Prof. Ahlemann visited companies with a strong focus on digitization and innovation like Huawei, BYD, EHANG, and WAE in Shenzhen and Wuhan, China. The 19 delegates consisted of representatives from the City of Duisburg, the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and other Duisburg companies. During the 7-day delegation trip they focused on both promoting the city partnership between Duisburg and Wuhan and on the transformation of cities into Smart Cities. The group visited various locations in order to discuss planned and currently running Smart City applications and to exchange experiences. At the Huawei headquarters, the participants were presented with various Smart City and IoT solutions in a cloud-based environment. 

Thereafter, they visited Longgang, where the representatives visited a Smart City operations center. Topics referring to event management, emergency networking, risk monitoring, data exchange, decision support, quality control, and the city’s visualization are brought together in this center. The delegation also learned about new forms of transport: The company EHAG presented drones flying passenger and the latest technologies in the field of electromobility were discussed at the BYD Experience Center. The trip proceeded at a fast pace: The delegates experienced a high-speed train ride from Shenzhen to Wuhan, where the mayor warmly welcomed them. The city of Duisburg has been twinned with Wuhan since 1982.

The trip not only enable the participants to have exciting discussions about cities’ future development, but also provided an insight into the effects of already implemented Smart City applications.