UrbanTide will make up part of an international reference panel to offer assurance, insight and smart cities expertise at four stages of the Newcastle project, culminating in a smart cities strategy for the second most populated area of New South Wales.

As we are building relationships and growing networks across the globe, our CEO Pippa Gardner introduces our latest smart cities collaboration for Newcastle, Australia.

How it happened

A good part of our business development activity this year has had a focus on international projects and collaborations.  And I’m glad to say we’ve done well in getting picked up on the international stage. After a successful bid we will be working over the next three months to provide expert input into the creation of a smart cities strategy for Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. We were chosen to be part of this collaboration with David Lock Associates primarily because of our experience with British Standards Institution (BSI) PAS 181 Smart city framework – Guide to establishing strategies for smart cities and communities and because of the work we did with the Scottish Government and Scottish Cities Alliance to create a smart cities reference model and self-assessment tool for cities.

What happens now

UrbanTide will make up part of an international reference panel to offer assurance, insight and smart cities expertise at four stages of the Newcastle project, culminating in a smart cities strategy for the second most populated area of New South Wales. The first of the four touchpoints of the strategy planning process has just been completed with the formation of consultation and engagement tasks. For that work, we reviewed Newcastle’s outputs against the approach we took with the Scottish Government, Scottish Cities Alliance and the 7 cities in Scotland in order to help shape the next steps for Newcastle’s smart cities strategy. The next three touchpoints will be to review and comment on strengths and opportunities background papers, a literature review on best and next practice in the development of the strategy implementation and finally to provide comments on the draft strategic plan.

By pulling together the strengths across the UrbanTide team, we are offering a spectrum of skills and specialist knowledge to this collaboration while promoting the work we have done with the Scottish Government and Scottish Cities Alliance on an international stage. The work we have done in the past is now helping to feed global smart cities strategies and in turn the work we do with David Lock Associates in Australia will expand the reach of our experience and knowhow. We are helping to nurture and grow an ecosystem of smart cities experts with roots in Scotland.