CityCast - the smart cities podcast from CityVerve

Picking up right from where we left off in Episode 15, the second half of our two-part finale sees the CityVerve leadership team looking to the future. Manchester City Council's Mark Duncan, MSP's Rowena Burns and Cisco's Nick Chrissos have all played key roles at the helm of the project, and in this - the very last episode in the CityCast series - they discuss what happens next. Not just in terms of what happens to CityVerve, but where the project has left the smart city sector more broadly. They discuss how what's happened here in Manchester will inform the city's imminent future, as well as how the city authorities and partners involved in the project are already working with cities all over the world - in places as far flung as Australia and China - to pass on their experiences and expertise. We ask Rowena, Mark and Nick what their must-have ingredients would be if designing a utopian city from scratch - and find out whether the past two years of working on CityVerve have changed how they think about the cities we live in.

For our final episodes of CityCast, we want to send the project off in style. That's why, over the course of our two-part finale, you'll be hearing from the people responsible for keeping CityVerve on track and staying at the very forefront of smart city innovations. Regular listeners will recognise Rowena Burns as a former host of this podcast series, but she's also been instrumental in steering the CityVerve project as MSP's chief executive. Cisco's Nick Chrissos has been responsible for technical delivery of the project as a whole, and has plenty to share about the new challenges and experiences the past two years have thrown up. And from a Manchester City Council perspective, Mark Duncan has been on hand to make sure that the city's objectives are being met - and learning lots about futuristic IoT technology in the process! In this episode, the leadership team reflect on what's been achieved, overcome and celebrated on the project to date. What went well? What didn't turn out as expected? And, most importantly, what have we learned in the process? Part two will cover off what happens next for the project, and where our discoveries will take us next...

We're on a whistle-stop tour of Manchester this month, talking about power in some of its many forms. We investigate the future of energy provision with Bruntwood's Bev Taylor and the shiny new Tesla battery at Manchester Science Park.  With Clicks + Links, we hop aboard a Mobike and find out how virtual reality and pedal power is transforming the way city and transport planners approach their role of shaping the way we move around our cities. And we also hear from the Robot Orchestra Collective - in more ways than one - about how they're using data produced by the city and its occupants to make music and perform in new and innovative ways.

CityCast returns - and we've been painting a portrait of our city and its people. In this month's episode, writer and filmmaker David Petch came into the studio to talk about the film he's making about Manchester - and how it ties into the citizen-centric approach to smart cities that CityVerve promotes. We also reported from our three-day 'conference-as-lab' called Every Thing Is Connected, and tested out a new walking tour of Manchester that traces some of the pioneering innovations that the city claims as its own.

Having battled off the Beast From The East, we’re back for another episode of CityCast. This month, FAULT LINES artist Ling Tan joined us in the studio to talk about her upcoming SUPERGESTURES performances, the various workshops that she’s run to get the project to this stage, and her own recent brush with the wintry weather. We also reported from the Open Innovation selection day, held at the Bright Building in Manchester. David Crookes, one of our Citizen Journalists, was there to meet the start-ups pitching their ideas and speak with the judges who’d be deciding on the final cohort. Anne Dornan, meanwhile, was up against the clock in Meet The Partners – introducing us to the work that MSP leads on in the CityVerve project.

We're back for the first CityCast episode of 2018, and we're diving straight in with a big, sometimes perplexing subject: open innovation. Thankfully, the studio was graced with a couple of people who know about collaboration. Anne Dornan heads up MSP's innovation activities, and joined us to talk about the CityVerve Open Innovation challenges. Rayan Jawad is co-founder at Growth Studio and knows a thing or two about how to scale from an innovative idea to a ground-breaking reality. Discussion ranged from the benefits of a collaborative approach, to how to actually make one work - as well as whether innovation itself has become something of an empty buzzword. Elsewhere, we've got all the latest smart city news updates from around the world and have put another partner up against the clock for Meet The Partners. Find out more about the CityVerve Open Innovation challenges over here: https://cityverve.org.uk/cityverve-open-innovation-challenges-seeking-new-collaborators-build-better-city/

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already hit double figures with CityCast (well, this episode is technically our eleventh, when you count the roundtable special from earlier in the year). We’ve covered everything from connected buildings, to poems, singing tram stops and street furniture. This month, Anne Dornan took the reins and was joined by three people who are putting citizens at the heart of the city. Minnie Yusaf is a self-described storyteller and design thinker, and currently works at FutureEverthing – Manchester’s cultural innovation lab, and a key CityVerve partner on the Culture & Public Realm theme. Kevin Moss is a technical project manager at Sparta Digital, and has been a hands-on player in the development of the Buzzin app that’s currently guiding people around the city’s Christmas Markets. And Reina Yaidoo works at a social enterprise called Bassajamba that specialises in the science, health and tech needs of disadvantaged and marginalised communities. She’s also one of our citizen journalists. Tackling the tricky topic of how to design smart solutions that can serve the needs of a diverse population, as well as how to make technology accessible to all, the discussion ranged from Human Centred Design to Star Trek and everything in between. Meanwhile, Adrian Slatcher went up against the clock for Meet The Partners – speaking about the work that Manchester City Council is contributing to the project.

In episode nine, we're talking about energy and the environment. Joining the discussion, we had MFT facilities manager Jan Maiden, Bruntwood's head of energy and environment Bev Taylor, and SPICA founder Paul Collins. Needless to say, such a broad topic made for some ranging conversation. As well as how technology is being used to ensure water cleanliness in Manchester's hospitals (vital work being undertaken as part of the CityVerve project), we discussed how energy efficiency is about more than just saving money and the planet - it can be key to keeping people happy and healthy too. We've got all of our usual features too, including a news update and Satsafe's Stuart Millward jumping into the 'Meet the Partners' hotseat.

*Special Episode* The CityVerve project is about connecting people – and things. So, naturally, we were delighted to bring representatives of some of the UK’s leading smart city projects together for what we’re calling CityChat, a smart cities roundtable from CityVerve. Joining our host, David Altabev – who you might recognise from a previous episode of CityCast – were three smart cities experts from Milton Keynes, Manchester, and Southend-on-Sea. As expected, the discussion was wide-ranging and yielded some interesting results. Over the course of the afternoon, five main themes emerged: citizen engagement; data; the examples set by smart cities abroad; funding; and, as you’d expect from a group who like to keep an eye on the future, how things are set to change in the coming years…

For the eighth episode of CityCast, our host Rowena Burns invited Sam Li from Transport for Greater Manchester into the studio along with The Bridgewater Hall's Paula Wilson to talk about travel, transport, trams and tunes - including the incredible Tram Tracks project that's been marking 25 years of Metrolink and The Bridgewater Hall's 21st birthday. You'll also hear some music from the project, featuring the talents of local musicians and community groups from across Manchester. Altrincham's Simply Voices, the Manchester Lesbian and Gay Chorus, and Sing Sing and Brighter Sound all lend their skills to give a flavour of the Tram Tracks initiative. Meanwhile, Manchester Metropolitan University's Caroline White takes the hot seat for the regular 'Meet the Partners' segment, and we've all the latest smart city news headlines too.

For this month’s episode, Rowena Burns was joined by two creative luminaries, Naho Matsuda and Natalie Kane, who are currently tasked with bringing the CityVerve project to life. Naho is a member of FutureEverthing’s FAULT LINES cohort, and responsible for a new artwork commissioned by CityVerve and titled ‘every thing every time’. Natalie, meanwhile, works at FutureEverything as an editor and curator, and the pair spoke with Rowena about what FutureEverything is doing to blur the boundaries between art and technology. They also discussed the importance of involving local people in the development of these ideas and solutions, and how we can look at city technology in new, more human-centric ways. Elsewhere, Tim Streather of SPICA Technologies was in the hot seat for our regular ‘Meet the Partners’ segment, and we heard from Cisco’s Nick Chrissos and Pete Rai down at IoT World Forum too.

Our host, Rowena Burns, chief executive of Manchester Science Partnerships, was joined in the studio this month by David Albatev. David’s spells at Nesta and Innovate UK (when it was still known as the Technology Strategy Board) have given him a wealth of knowledge about what makes a city smart – and what makes a smart city work. In particular, David was able to bring his ranging experience to bear on the question of how well the UK is doing on a global scale. The signs are largely encouraging, but there’s always more that can be done. Asset Mapping’s Bill Clee also stopped by to go against the clock in our regular ‘Meet the Partners’ challenge, and David made a deposit into our virtual Room 101 of vacuous vocab.

We were in Manchester this month for the fifth episode of CityCast, where we spent the afternoon picking apart the very meaning of what it is to be a ‘smart city’. Rather than talking about cities of the future as ‘smart’, shouldn’t we be aiming to create something that we can describe as ‘wise’ instead? Dr Joe Ravetz has been working on this subject for the best part of 20 years, and had plenty to offer when it came to discussing how to first figure out what we really need cities for – and therefore how we can make them work best for the people living, working and playing in them. Joe is co-director of the Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy at the University of Manchester and has pioneered the art of strategic thinking for sustainable cities and regions. We also reported from the show floor at Smart IoT London, and Vijay Natarajan of Sparta Digital took on the quick-fire ‘Meet the Partners’ challenge.

This month, CityCast took a community project focus as we were joined in the studio by Louise Armstrong of Forum for the Future and the Peckham Coal Line. With plenty of experience in bringing together disparate communities in pursuit of systems change, Louise had lots of ideas to share on how we can use technology to bring people together to tackle shared challenges. The Peckham Coal Line is a particularly interesting example of this, as a grassroots initiative that aims to transform a disused railway line in the area into a shared green space for local residents. The University of Manchester’s Carmel Dickinson also dropped by to answer a few quick-fire questions for this episode’s ‘Meet the Partners’ segment. Our virtual Room 101 of business jargon received a couple of new additions too, with Louise opting to nominate not just one but two bits of vacuous vocabulary.

For this month’s instalment of CityCast, the smart cities podcast from CityVerve, we had two esteemed guests join us in the studio. Stu Higgins, who heads up Cisco’s smart cities practice, and Simon Navin, who holds a similar role at Ordnance Survey, were on hand to discuss whether the term ‘smart cities’ is itself too limiting and how we should take other non-urban settlements into consideration. Elsewhere, talk extended to the challenge of using technology to bring communities together and the importance of connectivity in all of this. Meanwhile, Andy Beechener, CEO and founder of Republic of Things, was in the hot seat for our regular ‘Meet the Partners’ feature. Want to continue the conversation? You'll find us on Twitter at @cityverve For more info on everything CityVerve, visit www.cityverve.org.uk

Episode 2 in the ongoing series of podcasts from the CityVerve consortium puts Jonny Voon, Innovation Lead at Innovate UK, in the hot seat. Alongside host Ian Kennedy, discussion ranges from the importance of the role government officials can play in encouraging innovation to what the hot tech topics will be in ten years' time. Chief researcher at BT, Professor John Davies, drops in to go against the clock in outlining the work his company is contributing the project. Jonny also has an interesting - though perhaps not very self-preserving - pick for the piece of jargon he'd like to send to our virtual Room 101... Want to continue the conversation? You'll find us on Twitter at @cityverve For more info on everything CityVerve, visit www.cityverve.org.uk

Welcome to the first in an ongoing series of podcasts from the CityVerve consortium, tackling topical subjects and issues around smart cities - as well as providing an update on CityVerve activity. In this episode, host and Cisco VP Ian Kennedy is joined by Digital Catapult's Head of IoT, Caroline Gorski. Conversation covers everything from the challenge of bringing together a diverse group of public and private bodies to work on a single project to how technologists are saving the world's bee population. Caroline is also asked to pick a piece of tech jargon to add to our virtual Room 101... Want to continue the conversation? You'll find us on Twitter at @cityverve For more info on everything CityVerve, visit www.cityverve.org.uk