Last year we met a lot of local authority professionals at the Smart to Future Cities Conference who were just starting out on their smart city journeys, and keen to find out more about Low Power Wide Area Networks, smart applications and capabilities.

Fast forward 12 months and this years’ delegates - at the ILEC Conference Centre in London – were not only smart city tech savvy, but ready to take the next steps to develop their own, exciting smart city strategies for transport, tourism, the environment and social care to meet the growing needs of their citizens.

We were excited to be there to meet them and to hear the latest views from smart city leaders.

From Nathan Pierce’s (Programme Director, Sharing Cities, Greater London Authority) presentation about technology to support local authorities smart city success, and learning from Natalia Reen, (Technical Lead, IoT Projects, City of Helsinki) how to use IoT data platforms to unlock citizen focused service models to deliver better quality services; to the lively panel discussions that included Stephen Blackburn from Leeds City Council discussing building business cases for regional investment; and hearing from Harri Pananeen from the City of Espoo, Astrid Vanackere from Ostend, Roudaina Al Khani from the University of Westminster and Stephen Lorimer from the GLA about how to build sustainable urban environments, the conference delivered great insight, was extremely informative and a great place to make and build valuable connections.

Running alongside Smart Transportation and Mobility this year, Smart to Future Cities really emphasised the key elements of collaboration and connectivity – crucial to the success of any smart city project - to everyone who attended.

So our thanks to everyone at Knect365 and to everyone we spoke to. And if we didn’t speak to you but you’d like to speak to us about how we can help you get your smart city journey off on the right foot, call us on 01543 22 77 00 or email enquiries@giosprite.com