City of Hamburg: Distributing funding grants faster with an AI-enabled technology platform
Explore the City of Hamburg’s journey with SAP
The finance ministry of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg was entrusted with creating an aid-application platform for artists and cultural institutions. SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP AI Services, and other solutions enabled it to efficiently process almost 100,000 applications relating to aid during the energy crisis. The platform was launched in only two weeks.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partners |
| State and local government | Hamburg, Germany | 70,000 employees | Dataport and D-LABS GmbH |
to launch the aid platform for the cultural energy fund.
documents automatically evaluated and classified.
cultural energy fund applications filed on the platform.
Budget Director, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
Creating a financial aid platform for the cultural sector as fast as possible
Cultural and creative sectors are important for the economy and employment, spurring innovation and benefiting communities by positively impacting well-being, health, education, inclusion, and urban regeneration. With these sectors being among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the German federal government wished to compensate them for the negative impact of the restrictions. It looked to the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, known for its modern IT landscape, to take the lead in building a scalable platform where artists could request and receive short-term financial aid in lieu of postponed cultural events nationwide. At €2.5 billion, the special fund for cultural events was the largest German cultural funding program to date.
Subsequently, the sharp rise in energy prices (for electricity and gas) particularly affected both public and private cultural institutions, such as theaters, libraries, museums, and cinemas. As a result, the government introduced the federal cultural fund for energy (Kulturfonds Energie des Bundes) to maintain the broad and diverse culture in Germany by making €1 billion available to the sector.
Key to implementing any solution was speed of delivery to help those in need as fast as possible and the ability to cover and digitalize the whole process from initial aid request to payout. It also needed to be applicable in all 16 federal German states and across different regulations. Transparency of the data and process was important, as was a means to guard against possible fraud.
Budget Director, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
Enabling a comprehensive digital aid platform
Kasse.Hamburg, Hamburg’s finance ministry—specifically its digital factory, which acts as a digital innovation lab—took responsibility for creating a cultural COVID-19 aid-application platform to process and pay out financial support on behalf of the German government. SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) was the foundation for this project, and it was used as a powerful toolbox that provided many services to build an integrated cloud application.
SAP Business Application Studio allowed the development of a flexible application, taking into account the specific requirements of the 16 German states. And thanks to capabilities in SAP AI Services, specifically the Document Information Extraction service and Business Entity Recognition service, the authorities could rely on an AI-based and highly automated process to evaluate aid applications. These services checked if uploaded data, such as proof of event cost and revenue or identity, matched information on the aid application.
Map-based visualization of live data and real-time reporting functionality were provided by SAP HANA Cloud and the SAP Analytics Cloud solution. The German federal tax office authentication service, ELSTER, was integrated using the API Management capability within SAP Integration Suite to help prevent fraud. And the aid payments were processed on the existing core finance software, SAP S/4HANA, which was also integrated with the aid platform.
With the technology and experienced employees already in place, the team at Hamburg’s finance ministry could quickly use the aid platform when the cultural fund for energy was set up. It was also able to enhance the platform with generative AI capabilities for additional efficiency improvements. Deploying the premium edition of Document Information Extraction helped save time in processing the applications and conducting calculations. The AI capabilities enabled data reconciliation and validation with a plausibility check to avoid errors and facilitated a better understanding of cost estimates. The document check-in and application inbox features read and prepared relevant information. Many processors were not overly familiar with the specifics of the energy market, and these capabilities helped them more quickly assess the energy consumption as indicated in the applications. The generative AI hub capability in the SAP AI Core infrastructure supported the generation of text templates based on the application—without sharing sensitive data with third-party LLM providers—that could be edited and sent to requesters.
Meanwhile, the SAP Preferred Success offering was employed for expertise in architecture design and project implementation and management. And as a prime partner, it also coordinated and ramped up external partners Dataport and D-LABS. These partners were responsible for the back-end integration, running the solution, providing technical support, and building the user experience of the portal, respectively.
Budget Director, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
Helping quickly distribute financial aid to those in need
With SAP BTP and SAP Business AI, the City of Hamburg developed a platform that builds on its advanced infrastructure to support a digitalized aid-application process—from initial request, validity checks, and objection handling to payment. Through collaboration with the 16 federal states, the intuitive self-service platform facilitated efficient application processing and uniform payments, with one city providing the technology for all. The aid platform was developed in a hybrid landscape as a side-by-side extension, which enabled a speedy implementation of only three weeks for the cultural events fund.
The platform’s flexibility and scalability meant its technical footprint could grow as needs evolved, and it took just two weeks to update the platform to administer the cultural energy fund. About 7,000 “cultural creators” submitted nearly 100,000 applications. The use of AI and generative AI was hugely beneficial in speeding up application processing by providing help with accessing data, reviewing requests, making suggestions, and editing text blocks. This considerably reduced the necessary person-hours, enhanced communications with the cultural institutions, and enabled faster payouts. A total of six million documents were evaluated. AI-based decision support made the process manageable by a limited workforce on the part of the authorities. The live reporting gave important information in real time, such as requested budget amounts and application status, to state authorities and the federal government.
Overall, the two-fund project has helped ensure that a diverse cultural life in German cities and communities could continue irrespective of the pandemic and the energy crisis. The project’s success is serving as a best-practice model for helping people in need in other sectors or situations in the future in a fast and reliable way.
Budget Director, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
Featured partners
Dataport is an IT service provider for several German federal states as well as an IT association of local authorities. Its mission is to promote digital change while being user oriented and secure.
D-LABS GmbH is an innovative design and consulting company for the digital sector. Since 2006, its team of experts has been creating outstanding digital solutions by living the principles of human-centered design.