Ferrovial Services, through the Centre of Excellence for Cities and Amey promote urban innovation, and that’s why they sponsored and organised the ‘Putting citizens at the heart of city services’ panel discussion, which was held in London as part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Smart Cities forum. This forum comprises Parliamentarians, local government authorities and industry. The event was attended by more than 50 experts.
The panel discussion, chaired by Member of Parliament Mark Prisk and moderated by Nick Gregg, Local Government Managing Director of Amey, featured the speakers Íñigo Jodra, Ferrovial Services Centre of Excellence for Cities Director; John Mothersole, Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council, and Priya Prakash, entrepreneur and CEO of the start-up Design for Social Change.
From different perspectives, the speakers agreed on the need to further improve the experience of citizens in a context of budget constraints. In order to achieve this, they discussed leveraging the following factors: the management model of the actual cities, the orientation of innovation to the scalability of projects, innovative public procurement, access to quality information and urban development of technology platforms that enable the Internet of things. Examples of innovative initiatives in European cities were discussed during the event. Topics such as the role of cities in the new circumstances, the cross-management of services and the challenge of universal access to new technologies were discussed in the discussion that took place after the speakers’ presentations.
Commitment to urban innovation
Ferrovial Services’ participation in the Smart Cities All-Party Parliamentary Group is part of its vocation to be the reference partner for cities in terms of innovation, promoting new models of services centered around the citizen and cutting-edge solutions with individual support to urban entrepreneurs. The Centre of Excellence for Cities drives urban innovation through collaborative programs such as Sheffield Smart Lab, Santander City Lab and Madrid Smart Parking.
Click here to see the video about urban innovation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNq7Izf46qQ
