INNOVATING FOR CITIES
The is leading the way in intelligent city management. It will help us in the city s administration to make better use of new technologies, and to manage traffic, pollution and other urban challenges in a smarter, more cost-effective way. WE ARE THE FUTURE CITIES CATAPULT. WE ACCELERATE URBAN IDEAS TO MARKET, TO GROW THE ECONOMY AND MAKE CITIES BETTER. Kit Malthouse, Deputy Mayor of London Based in London, we bring together industry, universities and city leaders so that they can work with each other to solve the problems that cities face, now and in the future. We help them turn ingenious ideas into working prototypes that can be tested in real urban settings. Then, once they re proven, we help spread them to cities across the world to improve quality of life, strengthen economies and protect the environment.
In the Big Data field the Future Cities Catapult is undoubtedly one of the most important players in the shaping of this new science it holds the keys to pulling together academia, startups, data providers and the big players to break down silos and start putting ideas into practice. Such data is central to the next generation of urban planning, smart cities and the emerging smart citizen. Image credit: istock.com/moreiso Andy Hudson-Smith, Director and Reader in Digital Urban Systems at UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis London has long been a beacon for the brightest minds and a centre for technological advancement. My Smart London Plan looks at how digital technologies can help us with both the opportunities and challenges of London s economic and population growth. The is a key partner for us, both boosting our understanding of these new technologies, and championing the many companies taking forward urban innovation here in the capital. It is this essential contribution that will spur entrepreneurship in the best big city on Earth and help secure the UK s future as a global market leader. Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
WHY WE RE HERE By 2050, almost 70 per cent of people in the world will live in urban areas. But cities are complex systems, struggling to succeed as they grow because of ageing populations, shifting economies and changing climates. City systems are being used at full capacity, but new technologies and processes can be used to help cities function better. There s a huge opportunity, right now, to develop resilient urban infrastructure that is made real through smart financing and business models in order to make sure that our cities are healthy and successful. 7 bn TODAY 3.8 bn 54% TOTAL POPULATION 9.55 bn POPULATION IN CITIES 2050 6.3 bn 66% of total population 2.52 bn 1950 746 m 30% CITIES ARE STRUGGLING TO GROW AND SUCCEED BUT NEW TECHNOLOGIES CAN HELP THEM FUNCTION BETTER
WHAT WE RE DOING The global integrated cities solutions market is valued at 200 billion by 2030 and there s an estimated global infrastructure investment of 25 trillion required over the next 20 years, too. With so much at stake, we re helping to ensure that money is spent in the best way. 200bn Annual global market for integrated urban solutions by 2030 25tr Global infrastructure investment needed to 2030 To do that, new developments need to share the load amongst themselves and utilise the strengths of one another to provide more efficient, cost-effective services. We need to think about cities as systems that can be joined up to work better together. Imagine a data-driven energy network that helps communities manage electricity consumption to reduce strain on the grid; sensors scattered across the city that tell you which park has the cleanest air for your child to play in; or an app that helps everyone get home from work as fast as possible by measuring congestions on roads, subways and pavements. That s what we re aiming for. We know that the UK is perfectly placed to make it happen. With clusters of world-class architects, civil engineers, property developers and urban designers as well as data analysts, software developers, academics and business service professionals, the nation is home to the talent required to transform cities. But the problems we want to solve are too complex for any single organisation or city to tackle alone. So we re helping to bring them together. 16bn Architecture and civil engineering firms contribution to UK GVA in 2012
HOW WE RE DOING IT Businesses, universities, investors, innovators, cities and their citizens can now all convene in one place: our Urban Innovation Centre in London. It s an independent venue for them to collaborate, receive expert support and develop ideas to make cities work better. On any given day, the Centre sees city leaders sharing their thoughts on planning regulations, data scientists creating maps of traffic through London s streets, and financiers and lawyers collaborating to develop new business models for emerging technologies. It s this bringing-together of ideas and understanding that we re all about. And it s working. As well as working on developing new products and services, we re partnering with leading cities in the UK and further afield at a strategic level; helping develop innovative financing and business models to fund projects that don t adhere to existing investment models; and collaborating with the British Standards Institute to create future cities standards that will provide more coherent and sustainable cities over the coming years. Whatever the collaboration, the goal is the same: to make our urban environments better. And for that to happen, we believe there are three key steps required to turn concepts into city-shaping solutions: we have to work collaboratively to solve problems that affect us all, demonstrate that new solutions can be used successfully in real cities, and work out how to ensure they re adopted the world over. OUR URBAN INNOVATION CENTRE Our Urban Innovation Centre is a space for our collaborators to come together, develop and test new ideas, and work with our team of expert staff from designers to data scientists, anthropologists to academics. At its heart is the Cities Lab, a worldleading facility where live data feeds, advanced modelling, simulation, analysis and visualisation can be used to test and validate new solutions to city challenges. The Lab is home to our Cities Data Store: an online facility where we host and share our urban data and code with others.
SENSING LONDON We ve teamed up with the Intel Collaborative Research Institute to install a network of environmental sensors across London. Our four living laboratories in Hyde Park, Brixton, Enfield and Elephant & Castle are continually monitored for changes in air, soil and water quality, as well as light and noise levels and activity of people. All that data is then used to understand what s happening in the city. The insights will create opportunities for others to innovate, from an app that warns asthmatics where it s unsafe to walk, right up to a new business model to ensure the future sustainability of London s iconic parks. DESIGN THROUGH COLLABORATION We need to create cities that address people s needs. That means understanding city challenges by studying the people who use them, to work out how the future might look, take organisations forward in time and change how they see the world. Then, we have to bring together the right people from academics and industry to city councils and charities who can use that insight to solve problems. Our recent Cities Unlocked collaboration with Microsoft and Guide Dogs is a great example, which is already revealing in more detail than ever before how the blind and partially sighted travel around cities. It s an unusual partnership, creating solutions that neither organisation could have developed alone.
TEST AND PROVE To solve real problems, we need to get the technology right and that means testing and refining. We re getting cities and developers to work directly with innovators to develop solutions that work by testing them, first through digital or physical modelling and then on the streets of real cities. Our Cities Lab is at the heart of this, using advanced modelling, simulation and visualization techniques to make sure that new ideas are practical, before testing them in the field at demonstrator sites in cities across the UK. In fact we ve already started: helping Milton Keynes Council, Neul, BT and the Open University to create the city the first large-scale urban test bed for the Internet of Things; and collaborating with Intel Collaborative Research Institute, Enfield Borough Council and The Royal Parks to create a city-wide network of sensors to help improve air quality. GREATER MANCHESTER DATA SYNCHRONISATION We ve joined up with Greater Manchester to unlock its civic data. Working with the local authorities, FutureEverything and Connected Digital Economy Catapult we re identifying the most useful datasets available in the region and then working with them to create open source code and standards so that it can be shared quickly and easily with anyone who wants to use it. From there, anyone from local businesses to international app developers can access the city s data so that it can be used to provide intelligent services for Manchester s citizens. A recent hackathon saw developers use the first datasets to create an obesity-fighting app called LightRaider, which turns jogging into a game by counting and scoring each lamp post you run past. Image credit: FutureEverything http://futureeverything.org
MK SMART We re working with Milton Keynes Council to create the UK s first largescale Internet of Things proving ground. It uses the decommissioned TV white-space spectrum to explore what a connected city could look like and what that could mean for the more efficient delivery of public services, from parking to pest control. Using technologies provided by Neul, BT and expertise from the Open University, the first projects will allow bins to tell refuse collectors when they re full, or direct drivers to the closest unoccupied parking space reducing the cost of collection and amount of congestion respectively. REMOVE BARRIERS Innovations that work need to be widely used to make an impact which means removing barriers that could prevent them from being adopted. So we re working with cities and governments to make sure that companies, and especially small businesses, overcome any problems that might get in the way from uneven purchasing rules to a lack of financing. We re developing innovative financial and business models to help encourage the adoption and scaling of new processes and technologies in major developments and infrastructure projects. We unpick common problems and make the learning and solutions widely available to avoid repeated mistakes. Image credit: MK Smart
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE GET IT RIGHT We ve got some big aims but they re not as big as the successes we ll achieve by helping people work together more effectively. When we get it right, urban innovation in the UK will be unlike anything in the rest of the world: the country will be recognised as a hotbed of brilliant applied innovation, a place where excellent ideas are turned into reality and where value is captured and shared by business, universities, public agencies and city governments. Our projects will get more products and services to market, quicker and adopted around the world, helping cities from Kinshasa to Carlisle clean up their environment and improve quality of life. That in turn will help grow the future UK integrated cities market and attract world-class organisations and investment to the UK, making the country a destination for urban innovation. But above all, when we get it right, we ll make life better for those who live in cities: our urban environments will be safer, cleaner, more efficient and easier to use.
HOW YOU CAN BE A PART OF IT If you re excited by what you ve read, you might be interested in helping us change cities. Maybe you work in city governance, business, academia, a technology start-up, or somewhere else altogether whatever you do, you could be a perfect complement to one of our projects. Collaborations with us can take many forms. We get companies, cities and universities collaborating on big innovation challenges; city leaders using our Lab to test city-wide propositions; innovators road testing new ideas at scale; and financiers and lawyers teaming up to remove barriers to innovation. Here are a few of the partnerships we re currently forming but please do get in touch whatever your area of expertise, because we re always excited to hear about new ideas. I have been impressed by the Catapult s immense technical GET IN TOUCH knowledge on the subject, as well as the ability to bring together IF YOU important stakeholders in the field. Their vision to transform current cities into smart cities and beyond ARE is TAKING ambitious but IOT achievable TO given THE the CITY enormous talent and appetite of the team. We want to find partners who will work with us to introduce the Internet Mischa Dohler, of Things to urban environments, Chair Professor in Wireless Communications overcome at King s barriers that stand in its College way London, and and prototype Co-founder, new ideas Worldsensing especially around connected streets. WANT TO KEEP OUR AIR CLEAN We re looking for partners to work with us on the social and technical challenges around city air pollution in order to make our city skies as pure as they can be. KNOW HOW TO MAKE CITIES RESILIENT We believe cities need resilient infrastructure, communities and systems. We want to partner with like-minded organisations that also want to ensure our cities can respond to shocks. Future Cities willingness to embrace a multi-disciplinary approach to complex experiential challenges that modern urban environments impose recognises that different organisations need to come together to share their experience, expertise, and insight in order for these problems and challenges to be addressed. Angus Foreman, CTO Microsoft UK
To remain competitive, cities like Manchester must continually adapt and innovate. Our on-going collaboration with the has given us a deeper understanding of the issues which will shape our urban landscape, and how to deploy cutting-edge solutions that meet the needs of the people who live and work here. Together with the Future Cities Catapult we have been able to deploy IoT platforms at scale in London, test them, and demonstrate their value in tackling major urban problems like air quality. Charles Sheridan, Director of IoT Systems Research Lab at Intel Labs Sir Richard Leese CBE, Leader of Manchester City Council Through working with Future Cities Catapult and Microsoft, we have been able to showcase what hyper-local technology can enable. This has helped us to be included in the Creative England 50 most creative companies, and win the NEF: The Innovation Institute award for Most Innovative Company 2014. Mike Crooks, MiBeacons Development Director at Mubaloo
INTERESTED IN WHAT WE RE DOING? THEN WHY NOT Visit our website Follow us on Twitter @FutureCitiesCat Or send us an email info@futurecities.catapult.org.uk