Digitalization instead of bureaucracy: Lars Wolfram wants to become Cologne's mayor!

Digitalization instead of bureaucracy: Lars Wolfram wants to become Cologne's mayor!

The Cologne local elections are approaching and the applicants for the post of mayor are bringing fresh ideas with them. A particularly interesting candidate is Lars Wolfram from the Volt party. The 48-year-old entrepreneur, who was born and raised in Porz, took the plunge into politics last year. “It is a great honor for me to step into the ring as a candidate for mayor,” says Wolfram, who wants to bring a breath of fresh air into the political landscape with his entrepreneurial background.

Wolfram completed training as an industrial clerk and worked in the advertising industry for a long time. In 2013 he founded the company “Talentsconnect”, which supports companies in recruiting personnel and now employs around 100 people from 17 nations. He believes that entrepreneurship is necessary to bring about political change and is passionate about digitalization in city government.

Digitalization in view

“60 percent of our working time goes into bureaucracy – that has to get better,” demands Wolfram and criticizes the progress made so far in Cologne’s administrative reform under Mayor Henriette Reker. He sees the need to finance social support services for drug addicts on Neumarkt and to make better use of the city's potential. He points to numerous role models from other cities, including the “Zurich model” for drug problems and the bicycle traffic strategies of Copenhagen and Paris.

The topic of digitalization plays a central role in Wolf’s approach. “We can learn from successful examples from other cities,” he emphasizes, and sees this as a key to optimizing administrative processes and reducing costs. In a successful five-year administrative reform project in Cologne, 182 of 229 projects have already been completed, which corresponds to a success rate of 79 percent. (Kommune21).

The administrative reform in Cologne

The balance drawn by Mayor Reker is largely positive: the city administration has become more modern, more digital and closer to the citizens. Despite these successes, Wolfram notes that the improvements are felt more internally than they are perceived externally. This currently represents a challenge that is often not sufficiently appreciated by the public.

All reform and digitalization projects are transparently documented on the city of Cologne's innovation platform. A multi-level approach to reform development is crucial, in which the experiences of employees and citizens are also integrated into the process (Innovative City). “It is important that the people affected by these changes also have their voices heard,” says Wolfram.

With a mixture of digital commitment and a sense of social responsibility, Lars Wolfram wants to change the Cologne city administration for the better and put more decision-making power in the hands of the future mayors. At a time when citizens' expectations are rising, the father of the family is hoping for a breath of fresh air in the town hall.

Whether he can implement this vision will become clear in the coming weeks when voters decide who they want to put their trust in.