Following a series of round table discussions held during the Summer of 2014, the Sheffield Executive Board and Sheffield First Partnership commissioned a small project to take a step towards developing a Smart City strategy for Sheffield.
Definitions of what constitutes a ‘smart city’ vary, but a useful starting point is perhaps this one from author Anthony Townsend, who describes smart cities as places “where information technology is combined with infrastructure, architecture, everyday objects and even our bodies to address social, economic and environmental problems.“
While issues of technology and data are centrally important, the SmartSheffield project aims to take a broad view of ‘smartness’ and look at how innovation of all kinds is being, and could be, applied to our city’s systems and collective challenges. In addition, the project will start to explore what it means for innovation in cities to be citizen-centric.
In order to understand this complex area, the project will set up an engagement 'lab’ and invite key stakeholders from the city’s public services, local authority, technology companies, voluntary sector, universities, infrastrucuture firms, placemaking organisations, small businesses, and others, to discuss innovations they are working on and planning, as well as their opinions, desires and challenges.
The main purposes of this exercise are:
- To map Smart City-related activity that is currently going on in the city, and work that is planned.
- To discover who the people and organisations are who are driving this agenda and contributing to it.
- To listen to opinions around this agenda and the way Sheffield, as a city, is pursuing the opportunities.
- To give us all an idea of the scope and scale of the agenda locally, nationally and globally.
- To connect people and organisations with others who are working in similar or related areas and to foster integration and interconnectedness.
It must be noted that this is not a public consultation, or a comprehensive survey. It is beginning the process of populating a map of the local smart city landscape, in order to inform further activity leading to an evolving city-wide strategy.
The expected outputs from this work will be a series of visual infographics describing the findings, which will collectively form a document with the following intentions:
- An ambitious document, setting a clear vision and direction for Sheffield, and outlining how the Smart City approach will help transform public services.
- An enabling document which sets the vision and overview for Sheffield but does not stifle innovation and activity.
- A robust document, which supports Sheffield in bidding for funds to develop the Smart City agenda.
- An inclusive document, shaped collaboratively with key stakeholders across the city, building on existing activity and ambitions.
- An accessible document, easy to understand, not too technical and suitable for a range of audiences.
Chris Dymond from Unfolding Innovation has been hired to conduct this engagement work and produce the outputs, and the process will run from September until early in the new year.
