Green Ecolution at nordisch.digital and FutureTec 2026

Between 30 September and 8 October we spent three days on the road. At nordisch.digital in Flensburg I got to present Green Ecolution once briefly and once in depth, covering the whole path from research project into industry. At FutureTec in Hamburg the focus then shifted to conversations.

nordisch.digital in Flensburg

nordisch.digital is the networking event for digitalization in and around Flensburg. It is run by a wide circle of partners, including lisezwei, the Flensburg University of Applied Sciences and the Smarte Grenzregion. The first day took place on 30 September at lisezwei, and on 1 October it continued at the university. For us it was a home game, since the university and the Smarte Grenzregion have been part of Green Ecolution from the start.

nordisch.digital guests in conversation at lisezwei

Three minutes at lisezwei

At lisezwei there was a new format called 3 Minutes to Match. Every exhibitor had three minutes to introduce themselves. The audience was a mix of companies, students, teachers and other interested people, each looking at a project like ours from a different angle.

Three minutes are not enough for architecture and measurement series, but they are enough for the basic idea. Many cities water their trees based on experience, without knowing which tree actually needs water right now. Green Ecolution measures soil moisture with sensors, shows the condition of the trees on a map and plans the route for the next watering run from it. In Flensburg the first sensors have been in the ground since May.

Cedrik Hoffmann presenting at 3 Minutes to Match how Green Ecolution turns measurements into a watering route through Flensburg

The day closed in the main hall with the KI Music Battle hosted by Johannes Ripken of DiWiSH and Christoph, billed as “The Revenge!”. The groundwork was laid that morning. In his session “KI = Echt? Emotional? Erfolgreich?” (AI: real, emotional, successful?), Johannes had an AI build the voting app for the battle live.

Johannes and Christoph at the KI Music Battle in the main hall at lisezwei, with the prompt for the AI music generator on the screen

TechSnack at the university

On the second day nordisch.digital moved to the Flensburg University of Applied Sciences, where Green Ecolution began. The TechSnack ran under the theme “Leben mit und trotz digitaler Technologien” (living with and despite digital technologies) and favoured short talks and discussion over classic lectures. In my half-hour slot, titled “Green Ecolution: Vom Forschungsprojekt in die Praxis” (from research project to practice), I told the whole story, from the idea through the research project to its continuation in industry.

The idea came from the Smarte Grenzregion. City trees should be watered when they need it, not on a fixed schedule. In 2024 nine students in the Applied Computer Science master’s programme turned that into a research project. They built their own sensor, which measures soil moisture and soil water tension at three depths and transmits over LoRaWAN, and a platform that shows the irrigation demand on a map and calculates the route for the watering run. The project ended in April 2025. The software worked and was open source, the only open question was what would come next.

Cedrik Hoffmann explaining at the TechSnack how Green Ecolution shows irrigation demand on a map

The answer came in autumn 2025 with the state’s Open Innovation programme. Together with the City of Flensburg and the Smarte Grenzregion, PROGEEK presented the concept to the jury, and Green Ecolution became one of 17 projects out of 61 submissions to receive funding. Since then the city has been the lead partner, PROGEEK develops and operates the platform, and the TBZ uses it in day-to-day operations.

A lot changed on the way into practice. Instead of the custom-built research sensor, a production model with our own firmware is now in the ground. It measures at only two depths, but it is affordable for an entire city. The installations brought new questions. At two sites no LoRaWAN signal came through, and the same reading means something different depending on the soil. To determine the soil type we use a test from the kitchen. Soil goes into a jar with water and gets shaken. After a few hours sand, silt and clay have settled in layers, and their thickness gives the proportions. The application then derives the soil type according to the German soil mapping guidelines.

Conversations at FutureTec

On 8 October we were at FutureTec at Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion, a fair about digitalization, cloud, IT security and AI. We had many conversations there, about Green Ecolution and about the topics the fair was built around.

Welcome to FutureTec 2026 at Volksparkstadion Hamburg, with a humanoid robot on stage

Green Ecolution is open source. All of the code is on GitHub, and any municipality can take the platform and adapt it to its own workflows. That means we have nothing to hold back in conversations like these. If someone wants to know how we process the sensor data or how route planning works, they get an honest answer and, if they like, the link to the code.

Thanks to Flensburg and Hamburg

Thanks to the partners of nordisch.digital, who put together two very different days with the company day at lisezwei and the campus day at the university. And thanks to everyone we met in Flensburg and Hamburg.

If you want to learn more about Green Ecolution or use the platform in your municipality, get in touch through the contact page. You can try it in the demo, and the code is openly available on GitHub.