Smart Moves Newcastle Project In 2017, Newcastle City Council...

Smart Moves Newcastle Project In 2017, Newcastle City Council (NCC) successfully led a multi-partner collaborative proposal to win funding through the competitive Australian Government Smart Cities and Suburbs program for the Smart Moves Newcastle (SMN) project. SMN is focused on developing and deploying intelligent mobility, energy and data networks. SMN will establish a city-scale testbed as an asset for NCC’s planned Newcastle Living Lab strategy, and as a resource for accelerating technology prototyping and solutions to complex urban challenges. SMN comprises 21 sub-projects which are to be completed by mid 2019, including Project 19: Startup Engagement.The prototyping testbed and experimental city platform established through SMN is considered a major strategic input into the development of the local innovation ecosystem. In order to operationalise this potential, the 'soft infrastructure' supporting living lab trials will be implemented through program of start-up engagement. The Startup Engagement program is being coordinated by Eighteen04 and will see four separate events coordinated to encourage and facilitate participation in ecosystem activities and, eventually, the use of the city testbed through a Council-led Living Lab (LL framework and implementation plan currently in development) and a digital sandbox (currently at the scoping stage). The learnings of SMN-019 will inform both projects, which are linked to NCC’s broader Smart City strategy, and provide use cases of potential sandbox collaborators and mutual expectations regarding data exchange and requisite governance requirements. The activities include in the engagement program are:an internet of Things (IoT) hackathon to prototype solutions to common safety, waste and amenity concerns in urban environments using IoTan online mobility challenge (HeroX) to generate new ideas around how data can be used to incentivise electric vehicle usage and other alternative transport options an energy demonstration showcase event to view and explain different emerging energy saving and monitoring technologies