Webinar: How to become a data-driven city

Data has the potential to transform how cities operate, enabling more informed decision making to operate more efficiently and provide better services. 

In the future the data itself will be considered an asset in the same way as physical infrastructure. This webinar looks into how cities can take control of their urban data assets. By urban data we mean sensor-collected data and the data cities already hold. Examples include mapping how people use the city, the mix of traffic on the roads, the hyper-local air quality and noise levels. 

It’s still early days for urban data. We’ll discuss the barriers that prevent cities from using their urban data assets. The challenges start from the fact that cities don’t have enough data to make better decisions, and that many cities have outsourced their data-generating infrastructure due to a lack of internal resources. We’ll discuss why new tools are needed to enable cities to own their data and control its use. And why providing detailed, real-time and transparent citizen oversight on data policy is essential from day one. Going forward cities will need a common language to share best practice and to develop standards for the responsible application of urban data.

In this webinar you’ll hear about:

• What is urban data and why does it matter?

• Streetlight infrastructure as a data grid for hosting sensors

• How data should be collected and protected in a transparent way

• Challenges and opportunities of urban data collection for the cities

• Real examples from a pioneering urban data project

Our speakers

Our speakers are part of the Urban Data Project – an initiative bringing together cities and industry to provide new technology and transparent policies for cities.

Dan Clarke, Smart City Programme Manager, Cambridgeshire County Council
Dan has been developing the Smart Cambridge programme and has overseen multiple pioneering smart city pilot programmes in Cambridge from air quality sensing to autonomous shuttles and to providing a multi-modal travel app for citizens. Cambridge is the launch partner city for the Urban Data Project.

Bill Wilson, Data and Analytics Capability Lead, Kainos
Bill is an expert on building data architecture at Kainos. They work with both private and public sector digital transformation projects, where security, robustness and scalability are paramount. Bill is working in the Urban Data Project building the trust infrastructure for data, including how it should be ethically governed.

Jon Lewis, Chief Strategy Officer, Telensa
Jon is the driving force behind Telensa’s collaboration project, the Urban Data Project. The project consists technology companies and cities working together to find the right way to collect, protect and apply urban data. Jon also leads the Urban Data team at Telensa, which is building trusted platform and device technologies utilising AI and Machine Learning.

The webinar will be moderated by:
Keith Day, Chief Marketing Officer, Telensa