15 UK’s most agile smart city innovators, flown to Sydney for two intensive days talking to Australia’s leading startups in smart city solutions. The Future Cities Mission looked to help boost innovation on UK soil and to open discourse on smart cities.

Attending were British innovators including the creator of Heathrow Airport’s self-driving pods, Westfield Technology Group, smart parking system JustPark and smart key-to-smartphone startup, Doordeck.

Joining them included: Inavya Ventures, Loqiva, Grid Smarter Cities, Open Energi, Predina Tech, Bulweria, Citi Logik Limited, SEaB Energy, Sunamp Ltd, MultiPass, Upside Energy Ltd, and Digital Node.

Kicking off this week, PAM’s Founder/CEO Stephen Minning and CTO James Gray joined The Future Cities Jam Workshop to solve connected city environments.

During the workshop, James Gray spoke about the parity in methodology between the built and technological environment. Highlighting the need for a change in the way we develop cities he said; “ In tech, there’s been a real focus on no-user-left-behind and accessibility, and when we work in this framework we’ve had huge success. Combining this with the Government developing procurement frameworks which enable small companies to start working government. We’re in a great space to take a user-centric approach into the built environment.”

Innovate UK’s innovation lead, James Taplin, said “We believe the greatest innovation comes from the mingling of diverse ideas in an environment that is conducive to their growth. With this mission to Australia, we aim to achieve just that.”

With the kick-off event finished, Future Cities will move on to Melbourne, and PAM returns with new ideas, connections and more drive than ever to tackle smart city solutions head-on.  

For more information on our learnings from the Future Cities Mission with Innovate keep your eyes peeled on CTO James Gray who will be releasing a white paper on the event soon.