Smart cities leaders from Australia and New Zealand came together last week for Smart Cities Week Australia to network, exchange and create opportunities for accelerating the region’s sustainability through technology and data solutions.
Over 400 attendees representing 50 cities, including Wellington, Hamilton and Christchurch, were present. The week included workshops and breakout sessions with dynamic speakers from across the smart city ecosystem who highlighted vital issues and explored the trends, data and technologies helping accelerate action and investment in more liveable, workable and sustainable communities.
A highlight of the event was an inspiring keynote from the Mayor of City of Seat Pleasant on their philosophy of a Citizen Centric Government – it’s about the people, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end … always! This is something that is reflected in Hamilton’s approach as working to build a ‘smart society’.
New Zealand was well represented across the three days starting with the Local Government Smart Cities Networking Meeting on the first day. On the second day of the Conference Jannat Maqbool, Smart Cities Advisor at Hamilton City Council, moderated a panel on Cross-jurisdiction collaboration. The discussion focused on leveraging experiences and resources, working together across Australia and New Zealand, sharing knowledge and insights, possibly even building connected IoT networks across Australia, and developing a truly open and enabling data framework.
“The strength of Smart Cities Week is being able to talk to the people who create and do,” said Sean Audain, City Innovation Lead at Wellington City Council, who contributed to a discussion on the topic of data essentials.
The data essentials– purpose, ethics, governance and privacy – highlighted that work that is needed in this space, and also, as Audain calls it, “geeked out” with Australian & Singaporean digital twin leaders at the Australian Digital Twin Symposium on Friday.
Smart Christchurch Project Manager Grace de Leon participated in the “Deployment with a purpose” session talking about the city’s seismic sensor network (Seismic Resilience As A Service) solution for building and asset owners in Christchurch, which is helping better manage risks to keep citizens safe through the provision of real-time information post-event for managing natural hazards.
There were also a number of announcements over the three days, including the launch of the Centre for Data Leadership and the Women in Smart Cities Global, Sydney chapter, and of course the Smart Cities Awards which recognise and reward leadership, celebrate best practice and stimulate action to advance the smart cities movement.
Find out more about Smart Cities Week here.
Image: Sean Audain from Wellington City Council participates in the data essentials session at Smart Cities Week in Sydney.
Contributed by: CultivateIT
