The InnOvaTe Project – Internet of Things
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About The Project
In October 2018, the South London Partnership boroughs were awarded £4 million for a South London multi-purpose ‘Internet of Things’ platform project to help people live better, healthier lives and to generate economic growth. This website provides an overview of the project (also called “The InnOvaTe Project”) and aims to keep various stakeholders updated on progress.
Introduction
The South London Partnership boroughs are starting out on an ambitious project which is considered “market leading” across the UK. This is an opportunity to enhance the lives of our residents using the insights we’ll gain from the project. We are proud to be playing a significant part in this groundbreaking and collaborative initiative.
The South London Partnership is working with London Councils to deliver an exciting and innovative “Internet of Things” (IoT) project across the five south london Councils of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Richmond upon Thames and Sutton. This initiative is funded by the Strategic Investment Pot (SIP) as part of the London Councils Business Rates Retention scheme which is administered by the
City of London Corporation.
Overall, 22 bids were received from 15 accountable boroughs for a total of £123.4 million and in July 2018 it was recommended that the South London Multi-Purpose Internet of Things Platform would receive funding to an amount of £4 million.
The funding will allow the SLP boroughs to deliver a multi-purpose Internet of Things (IoT) platform which will connect various sensors across borough boundaries. The project will use IoT to obtain new data insights using internet-connected sensors, with minimal human intervention to support and drive economic growth across the sub-region.
The project will bring together technology and places to create spaces that address challenges in our communities and opportunities to help people live better, healthier lives and live independently for longer. It could also deliver financial savings to boroughs.
Why “InnOvaTe”?
In order to better communicate and engage stakeholders, the project has officially been named as ‘The InnOvaTe Project’. This name was shortlisted following an internal nomination process between the partnership boroughs. The name explains the ambition of the project (i.e. being innovative) but emphasises the “IoT” component which underpins its success (hence the capitalisation of the “i”, “o” and “t” letters in the project name).
Project Aims
The project will develop and deliver further detailed study and pilot works (culminating in a formal evaluation) which will be used as the foundation for a sustainable multi-purpose IoT platform connecting various sensors across council boundaries. The overall project goal is to support business retention and sustainable economic growth but also consider pilots that might have the potential to deliver significant savings to borough budgets.
The project will be focused on the testing of practical case studies that will enable informed decisions to drive new enterprising opportunities, attract interest and create appetite for people and businesses to come to work and live in South London.
Our Strategy
The strategy will assist to understand the needs of business and residents more clearly by exploring strategic challenges across the borough. This will inform and steer possible IoT solutions that could support sustainable growth in these areas. Finally, we will look to apply this technology to facilitate the data needed to help Councils make better informed decisions which will drive improved outcomes for residents and businesses. This project will pilot a regional IoT platform (in some capacity) allowing for the sharing of data between the councils in a coordinated and managed way.
This practically means that we will deploy various types of IoT sensors (some across council boundaries) to generate data which can used by Councils to gather insights into the needs of local businesses and residents in order to improve infrastructure decision-making and deliver services more efficiency.
The learnings of the project will be used to inform possible future adoption this new technology at a much larger scale.
What is this really about?
This project sets out to bring technology and places together to create a space for us to address challenges in our communities and deliver sustainable economic growth. The aim is to generate new data in a safe and secure way which can be used in a smart way to benefit residents and local businesses. This is not about tracking residents or storing large amounts of data unnecessarily.
What does this mean for boroughs?
Challenges
Many local authorities have started to implement IoT systems for a number of reasons. Our approach is to clearly define what we need to achieve and discover what boroughs wish to address. We will then apply the technology to those challenges.
Bridging Technology and People
This is about bringing technology and places together to create a space for us to address challenges in our communities and deliver sustainable economic growth. It is about how we reconstruct communities; use public spaces more effectively and enable people to live better, healthier lives; living at home for longer.
Positioning
This project presents an opportunity to cement SLP’s position within London and nationally as a region which is leading in the IoT space, which will attract further opportunities and benefits for residents and businesses and ultimately lead to more funding available for core council services.
Markets
Despite this being a new sector, there is a lot of support from the market in terms of partners, networking opportunities and collaborative learning. A number of key market leaders and suppliers have shown interest in supporting this project through its various stages.
Data Into Actions
The “Internet of Things” technology will open up opportunities for obtaining new data with minimal human intervention. This will provide the insights needed to enable councils to be more responsive to the needs of residents and businesses, and ultimately transforming how we realise the Council’s objectives.
Growth
The Internet of Things is a growing sector and new solutions enter the market on a regular basis. Using these innovative solutions, we will enable councils to make better growth and infrastructure decisions so that they can deliver improved services to address the specific needs of residents and businesses.
Councils involved
Partners
Suppliers
Over the coming months, we will be talking to businesses operating within the IoT space about how they can help us deliver our goals.