Bristol named as UK’s leading smart city outside London
Bristol is one of only two cities in the UK to be named as smart city ‘Leaders’, scoring 80.2 in the Smart Cities Index just behind London at 80.5
The UK’s first Smart Cities Index has named Bristol as the country’s leading smart city outside London and leader of the pack for digital innovation. The city is the highest performer in four out of 10 evaluation criteria: digital innovation, stakeholder engagement, projects implementation and delivery of digital strategy
The report by Chinese tech company Huawei compares and evaluates the 10 leading smart cities in the UK with the aim of celebrating best practice and identifying challenges which need to be overcome for cities to become smarter.
Bristol and London have set themselves apart from the others through their clarity, breadth and inclusiveness of their smart city visions and planning, and are leading the way in implementing significant projects at both the pilot and full-scale levels. The other eight cities have been identified as Contenders, Challengers and Followers.
Bristol is particularly strong in the digital innovation category, which evaluates the city’s strategy to develop and exploit digital technologies and services, scoring the top mark of 92 out of a possible 100 points. It also comes out top for stakeholder engagement, implementation of projects and delivery of the city’s digital strategy. Bristol’s overall score in the Smart Cities Index is 80.2, just behind London which scored 80.5.
Smart Cities is a term which is used to describe a city which uses technological innovation to deliver services in an economically viable and environmentally sustainable way. Smart cities are being built on an intelligent urban infrastructure of connected devices.
“To be named as the top city for digital innovation and one of only two smart city leaders in the UK is fantastic news for Bristol,” said Rick Chapman, high tech sector specialist at Invest Bristol and Bath – the inward investment agency for the region. “This is testament to the city’s extensive smart city strategy and ambitious goals but also to its commitment to delivering on projects and working well with communities and stakeholders to make them happen. Bristol is fast becoming known as a national and international digital hub and this report cements our position as leading the UK in this sector.”
Huawei has 15 offices across the UK and in 2014 chose Bristol to be its home for a new research & development centre because of its talent pool and position as a hub for cutting-edge innovation.
“Bristol is a city that is driving the UK’s digital agenda, highlighted by its pioneering smart cities innovations,” said Gordon Luo, CEO, Huawei UK. “We opened our Bristol R&D centre in 2014 as part of Huawei’s UK Innovation Programme, precisely because we were attracted by the highly-skilled technology professionals in the area and the city’s open mindset towards innovation. Our work researching ICT chips, software, and analogue chip technology in Bristol is genuinely world-class and is part of that city-wide drive towards a smarter, tech-driven future.”
Earlier this year, Bristol was identified as the most productive digital tech cluster in the UK according to the Tech Nation report. It was also named the only fast-growing and globally-significant high tech cluster in the UK by McKinsey & Co/Centre for Cities in 2014.
Huawei’s report also takes particular note of Bristol’s strengths in open data access, energy innovation and community engagement. For example, its Playable City initiative has brought together artists and designers from the UK and beyond to experiment and prototype playful interventions that use creative technologies to rethink public space (see case study below).
Clare Reddington, creative director at Watershed – Bristol’s cultural and digital creativity centre, says: “All over the world governments and technology companies are investing in smart systems for cities, using networks and sensors to join up services and collect data, as a drive for efficiency. Playable City is born out of Bristol’s unique take on people-centred technology solutions and the belief that our future cities need to be democratic, surprising and inclusive to remain relevant and engaging. We are delighted we have been able to take this uniquely Bristolian way of thinking and share it with the world.”
Download Huawei’s report HERE
The other cities identified in the report are Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Leeds, Peterborough, Nottingham and Sheffield.
Great piece on Bristol-based Minirigs in Forbes magazine
A reviewer from Forbes is blown away by the MinRig Bluetooth speaker technology developed in Bristol: http://www.forbes.com/sites/marksparrow/2015/10/12/minirig-portable-speakers-that-are-made-in-england-and-always-will-be/
The company behind the technology were covered in our Music special feature in June.
The MiniRigs Bluetooth stereo speakers and sub-woofer
UK tech industry faces fragmented times – FT.com
So how easy is Bristol’s success to replicate asks the FT? The city’s digital entrepreneurs describe several key advantages.The area has a strong pool of workers with engineering expertise. For years, Bristol and its surroundings have been a base for microelectronics and aerospace companies. Hewlett-Packard, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce have all had a substantial presence in recent times.
Another interesting statistic quoted in the article is that engineers are 30-50% cheaper in the region than in London.
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