Build4People is thrilled to announce that from 01 September 2025, its concluding two-year Implementation phase will begin. Under the guiding principle of the so-called Twin Transformation the Build4People project will use digital technologies and data purposefully to advance sustainability goals. More specifically, we aim to use the potential of digitalization to promote participatory, inclusive and sustainable urban transformation by supporting the Phnom Penh municipality to connect its existing green and smart city strategies.
In this context Build4People will build upon its most successful transdisciplinary transformative format of the past RD phase and facilitate the implementation of the so-called B4P Transformation Toolbox. Already during RD phase, a toolbox prototype has been developed as a tangible integrative output of the Ecocity Transition Labs series conducted in 2022, 2023, 2024 to foster innovative practices and alternative visions with Phnom Penh municipality and local developer companies within a collective learning system. This format particularly served to test locally adapted criteria, guidelines and strategies of sustainable neighbourhood development with the aims of reducing environmental costs, increasing urban resilience, and making sustainability measurable as well as on a more general level of strengthening the implementation power and regulatory role of Phnom Penh municipality.
The final aim is to implement the B4P Transformation Toolbox as a comprehensive digital planning instrument and as inter-active online information-, public participation-, technology-, and learning platform that enables evidence-based data driven decisions towards sustainability and enhanced quality of life.
Implementation will happen during four distinct phases:
- Exploration (3 months: September till December 2025)
- Testing (6 months: January till August 2026)
- Comprehensive implementation (6 months: September 2026 till May 2027)
- Expansion and Scaling-up (3 months: June till August 2027)
Implementation will get facilitated by a) two B4P Transition Manufactories as integrated one-week workshops on the ground to test and to apply innovative digital planning tools in regard of specific neighbourhoods in Phnom Penh b) Train-the-Trainer sessions, to empower local stakeholders with technical and implementation knowledge, c) Multi-Stakeholder Policy Dialogue Workshops to establish the digital tools within the national governance framework and to replicate them to other Cambodian cities to empower local stakeholders with procedural and dissemination competencies, d) the infusion of the collective transformative knowledge to the curricula of local partner universities as long-term impact.
After the ending of the funding from the German government, the further operation of the Build4People products shall be taken over by the recently founded Phnom Penh Smart City Hub.
Finally, an overall aim of the Implementation phase is a formative accompanying process evaluation of the implementation activities with the aim to optimize ongoing processes, to promote replicability and ultimately to achieve and to disseminate lasting transformative learning effects.
Last but not least, we would also like to announce a change in the consortium lead of Build4People for administrative reasons: From 01 September 2025, Hildesheim University will take over from Hamburg University and will be responsible for the Work Packages “Sustainable Urban Transformation” and “Coordination, Communication and Dissemination”.
