Vitali Klitschko’s smart city knockout

Former boxing champion fights administrative inefficiency with SAP software

They call him Dr. Ironfist for his brains and brawn. Known worldwide for his knockout punches, Vitali Klitschko is also the first professional boxing world  champion to hold a PhD.

Klitschko, who ended his boxing career in 2013 and has been active in Ukranian politics for years, has possibly just delivered his most powerful knockout to date. Currently the Mayor of Kiev, Klitschko recently announced a pilot project powered by SAP software for managing the city’s budget. The software, called Open City Budget, runs on SAP HANA.

The goal is to provide the city’s two million residents complete transparency into the public budgeting process and to enable decision makers to make more informed decisions in real time.

“Kiev, like the whole country of Ukraine, is striving to grow using global best practices and innovative technologies,” said Maxim Matyash, Managing Director, SAP CIS. “With this bold move, the city is starting one of the most important innovative transformations in urban management. The SAP solution will not only help centralize budget processes and provide transparency – it will also provide administrators with access to dynamic, precise data for real-time analytics. ‘Analyze all data, choose the essential, use the best’: this approach will help administrators make better decisions when it comes to planning city development projects and engaging with citizens on open terms.”

Open City Budget is a part of a long-term campaign to create a suite of solutions for Smart Kiev. The suite includes city real estate management, online public services for citizens, budget planning and much more.

With Klitschko’s smart move, the City of Kiev joins a distinguished circle of smart cities running SAP solutions such as Buenos Aires, Birmingham, Barcelona, and many more. SAP is a global leader in this market – over 14,600 public organizations in 148 countries, which is almost half of the total number in the world, use SAP solutions!

@magyarj