Urban Data Collective goes North East

Emerging connectivity technologies such as LoRaWAN and 5G have the potential to serve as an important enabler for the digitisation of cities and regions by providing the means to transport timely data for better decision making and on which businesses and cities can thrive upon.

As a consequence, cities and local authorities around the world are engaging in smart city initiatives and have forged partnerships with connectivity infrastructure providers to explore useful applications of such technologies.

A unique long-term partnership has recently been set up by Sunderland City Council and BAI Communications with the goal to create the UK's most advanced smart city.

After a successful initial network rollout, the partnership opened up their infrastructure to digital innovators around the world as part of the Sunderland IoT 5G Accelerator programme. 

Urban Data Collective was one of 10 startups selected to join the accelerator programme from more than 50 international applications.

Over a period of 2 months, our team worked closely with Sunderland City Council, Sunderland Software City, BAI Communications and the other selected startups to better understand local challenges and opportunities for digital innovation on top of the emerging connectivity infrastructure. 

The programme culminated in a demo day in the award-winning Sunderland City Hall, where we showcased the potential of Urban Data Exchange to serve as a complementary data infrastructure for smart city innovation.

The Accelerator programme has helped us to demonstrate our know-how and capabilities and allowed us to position ourselves as a credible partner to support the delivery of Sunderland’s ambitious smart city agenda. 

We are looking forward to upcoming collaborations over the years to come and extending our engagement further within the North East.