Governance

Principles, bodies, and processes.

Principles and Bodies

Principles

OASC members are cities, towns, and rural areas on planet earth, as jointly defined by the EU, OECD, World Bank, FAO, UN-Habitat, and ILO.

OASC members strive to collaborate, learn, share, implement, and replicate, in order to act as catalysts for the global adoption of local solutions that further sustainable development goals as defined by the international community.

OASC membership is - and always will be - completely free and universally accessible to all cities, towns, and rural areas, irrespective of size, means, geography, location, or other factors.

OASC members can join OASC by joining an OASC Chapter consisting of at least two members.

OASC members are represented in the Council of Cities, the Board of Directors, the General Assembly, and the Working Groups of OASC

OASC members can represent themselves; be formally represented by another member; or be formally represented by an elected not-for profit and non-commercial organisation.

OASC members formally adopt, endorse, support, and advance the Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms and their underlying principles of open data; open APIs; open access; and 'driven by implementation'.

Bodies

Open & Agile Smart Cities vzw is a not-for-profit organisation under Belgian law, based in Brussels. The organisation consists of following bodies:

General Assembly (GA) The GA is constituted by all voting governing entities of the organisation, being the Core Partners and the Members. The GA decides on the introduction or status change of MIMs.

Council of Cities (CoC) The CoC represents all members through their locally elected Chapter Coordinator. The CoC is chaired by the Council Coordinator and Vice-Coordinator, who can be any member and are elected by the CoC members.

Board of Directors (BoD) The BoD is elected by the BoD members, constituted by Core Partners and Member Representatives to the BoD as voting members, and the CEO as ex-officio, non-voting member.

Headquarters (HQ) HQ is led by the CEO who is appointed by the BoD. The CEO defines and implements the strategy of OASC under the vision and guidance of the BoD. The HQ oasc_tech team consists of senior technical advisors and runs technical operations under direction of the CEO, who is assisted by the Architecture and Standards Manager and the Technology Ecosystem Manager.

Technology Council (TC) ****The TC helps HQ oasc_tech, steers and validates the work of the WGs, and advises the CoC on technological matters. The TC consists of independent technology experts across a variety of fields and organisations. TC members are selected based on competence, might have an industry function, act only in an advisory capacity, and never represent a single commercial or competitive interest.

Working Groups (WGs) ****There are as many working groups as there are MIMs, plus one (Funding WG). The WGs are open to all members and partners of the organisation. The WGs work on the MIMs and propose topics to the TC. WGs can also directly report on progress to the CoC (by invitation).

Strategic Partnerships (SPs) SPs are governed by Memoranda of Understanding between OASC and other not-for-profit organisations with the objective to advance one or more societal areas. This can directly concern the development of MIMs. SPs are forged and proposed by HQ and approved by the BoD.

How MIMs are proposed

OASC is a strategic organisation and uniquely impactful network that harnesses principles of pushing the envelope by being 'driven by implementation'. The organisation and its members are at any given moment involved in hundreds if not thousands of local and international projects involving a variety of aspects related to digital transformation, scalable climate action, shoring up competitiveness and development, improving budget and risk control capabilities, and societal governance of advanced technologies.

Early results of projects are presented at Working Groups, the Technology Council, or special purpose fora and initiatives (both within and outside of OASC) to gather early feedback on global problem/solution fit, interoperability aspects, willingness to adopt, existing comparable baselines, running complementary projects, and leapfrogging opportunities.

Deployed and validated solutions are shared with the Council of Cities, presented at the CITYxCITY Festival, offered via courses on the CxC Academy, and/or listed on the CxC Catalogue and its sister catalogues.

The OASC 'driven by implementation' DNA provides fertile grounds for identifying candidate MIMs for global adoption. Following such adoption by the network of the initial 3 MIMs, the cities of Helsinki and Amsterdam in 2020 proposed MIM4 on Personal Data Management and MIM5 on Fair AI respectively for adoption. In 2021, MIMs on e.g. Security, Circular Economy Monitoring, and Geospatial Information are being prepared for proposal to the General Assembly by cities and partners.

How MIMs are adopted

The Council of Cities (CoC), representing all OASC cities across 4 continents, holds the final verdict on what becomes a MIM and what capabilities are contained therein. The CoC exclusively represents the so-called 'demand side': nowhere in the CoC, or anywhere else in the governance of OASC for that matter, are decisions made by companies or individual commercial interests. This ensures an open and level playing field, and ultimately an addressable and interoperable global market.

Proposal >

The proposal for a new MIM is prepared by initially one city or partner who then opens up the process for consideration and enrichment by other members and partners in the CoC and WGs.

Work item >

💡 After provisional endorsement by the BoD, the finalised proposal for the new MIM is presented to the General Assembly for a vote for formal adoption as a new MIM with the status of 'Work Item'. A WG is established and a call for additional collaborators is made at the GA. Then a one-year process of building, testing, sharing, learning, and reaching out to third parties takes place with the aim of establishing a workable baseline of references to open standards and best practices.

Capabilities >

🧩 The work on the MIM is presented to the CoC and BoD, and offered as a vote item at the GA. By voting favourably, the GA elevates the status from 'Work Item' to an official OASC MIM to be further specified and validated..

Specification >

🏗️ After the MIM has 'gone live', it is matured over a certain period and in a variety of ways (sandboxes, SDOs, technical testing and development, etc.) with the aim of reaching a technology-agnostic specification that can be satisfied by different actors, ensuring an open, sustainable, and diverse technology ecosystem.

Governance

👩‍⚖️ The MIM is maintained, evolved, and promoted by the appropriate bodies of OASC.

How MIMs are governed

The Technology Council ensures that already specified Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs) remain relevant and can be effectively adopted and implemented by the OASC ecosystem and the wider market.

It is the Technology Council’s ambition to maintain the MIMs to support the sustainable development of open and interoperable digital platforms, based on further developing and expanding open standards, technical specifications, APIs, and data models.

The purpose of the OASC Technology Council is threefold:

1. To oversee the overall roadmap of the Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms.

2. To support the technical development of existing MIMs and explore the technical possibilities for proposed MIMs.

3. To provide the OASC governance bodies with impartial advice and guidance on relevant technologies and standards that underpin the MIMs.