Notes from Meetup #23: No More Sensory Deprivation!
The 23rd edition of the SmartSheffield meetup took place in the Cantor Building at Sheffield Hallam University's City Campus, and was hosted once again by the Smart Computing subject group in the university's Computing Department. The theme this time was environmental sensing - following a general theme this year of looking at how new technologies are allowing us to gain more insight about our natural environment in order for us to better identify our city's detrimental impacts and intervene in order to strengthen our habitat and work with our natural surroundings to address wider problems such as flood risks, poor air quality and challenges to our health and wellbeing.
Dr Magdi Nabi explained a project he has undertaken for the Environment Agency which involved designing and developing a remote monitoring and control system to detect changes in dissolved oxygen in our waterways.
Paul Wheway, in a similar and complementary vein, introduced us to AquaSensor - a new startup that provides a low cost but highly accurate, robust and secure system for monitoring water quality along our rivers.
Prof. Ross Cameron provided a very interesting update on the findings from the “Green Barriers" project at Hunter's Bar Infant School, which was originally announced at our 16th SmartSheffield in September 2019.
Dr. Chris Roast gave us a brief explanation of the "Advancing Digital" programme of free training courses in a range of digital skills & encouraged tech firms to take advantage of these scheme before it ends at the end of the year.
Dr. Sam Chapman showed how his firm The Floow is leveraging their telematics data to gain insights into mobility behaviours across the country in order to provide policy makers with better evidence for planning, explaining how this evidence applies to active travel interventions, including recent ones in Sheffield.
Finally, as per usual I wrapped things up with a quick-fire (but still overlong) SmartSheffield News data dump, and then let everyone get to the food, beverages and chat.
All of these talks are embedded below, and also available in a handy YouTube playlist.
Thanks once again to all of our speakers, to everyone who came, and to all of our sponsors at SHU, Arup, TUoS, and Sheffield Digital.
We look forward to seeing you at the next event - please scroll down and join the mailing list to get notified when the date is announced!
Chris Dymond
Unfolding & Sheffield Digital
Dr Magdi Nabi
“Design & Deployment of Dissolved Oxygen Remote Monitoring and Control for the EA”
Dr Nabi is responsible for R&D at rhames, a leading UK based fabricator, parts manufacturer, and M&E Services Provider, and in this talk he tells the story of a project they have been executing with the Environment Agency to monitor water oxygenation, and a host of other indicators, in order to better manage our waterways and predict catastrophic events before they occur.
For more information about the work rhames do, please visit: https://rhames.uk/
Paul Wheway
“AquaSensor: Water quality data for all of us”
Paul Wheway is a co-founder at AquaSensor, a water sensing startup that is developing accurate, secure and highly cost effective solutions for water quality monitoring and prediction to improve the condition of our waterways.
For more information about AquaSensor, please visit: https://aquasensor.co.uk/
Prof. Ross Cameron
“Green Barriers for Improving Air Quality - an Update”
Ross Cameron is a Professor of Environmental Horticulture at The University of Sheffield, and in this talk he presents the findings of the Hunters Bar Infants School Green Barrier Project, which has been monitoring the effects of using planting to improve the air quality at the school since 2019.
For more information about the project, please visit: https://huntersbarinfantschool.co.uk/gogogreen/
Dr. Chris Roast
"Advancing Digital"
Dr Roast is a Reader in the Computing Department at Sheffield Hallam University, and here he provides a quick introduction to the Advancing Digital programme, which provides free training in digital subjects for firms and inviduals. The programme is funded by the European Commission and is set to send at the end of 2023 (so hurry if this is relevant and there is still time!).
For more information about the programme, please visit: https://advancing-digital.co.uk/
Dr. Sam Chapman
“Making Mobility Smarter and Safer”
Dr Chapman is the Senior Vice President of Innovation at The Floow, an automotive telematics company that provides data and insight to the insurance industry. In this talk, though, Sam encourages firms like his that are producing and analysing important data to use it for social, as well as commercial, benefits and explains how The Floow is doing this to improve traffic management and identify where 'ratrunning' behaviour is leading to congestion and poor air quality in residential areas.
For more information about The Floow, please visit: https://www.thefloow.com/
Chris Dymond
SmartSheffield News for October 2023
Chris Dymond, founder of Unfolding and co-founder of Sheffield Digital, presents his usual roundup of news across the city - not all of it directly involves technology or smart city-ness, nor is it a comprehensive review of everything that's happening, but it's things that are relevant to people who are interested in the development of the city and technology's role in it.
See you at the next one in 2024!
