Indian Trade Delegation learns about the Milton Keynes Future City Programme.
UK Trade and Investment provides opportunities for global business to engage with the UK and showcases the best of British activity to delegates from around the world. A delegation of Indian business leaders were specifically brought to the Transport Systems Catapult in Milton Keynes to learn about the best of British activity in Smart Cities.
MK:Smart executive team members Geoff Snelson, Director of Strategy, MK Council; Alan Ward, Head of Corporate ICT Practice, BT and Alan Fletcher, Business Development Manager, The Open University, gave presentations on Milton Keynes, MK:Smart and the MK Data Hub. The presentations were followed by a lively discussion on the technical, ethical and social aspects of smart city infrastructure, services and applications.
The discussion continued over lunch and the afternoon sessions were supported by demonstrations from Milton Keynes businesses with a stake in smart city activity. For example, Stewart Bailey provided an overview of how local SME, Virtual Viewing are leading in 3D, 4D and 5D visualisation of urban environments and buildings.
With the declared Indian intention of building 100 Smart Cities in both brownfield and greenfield sites, the opportunities for MK as a leading light in smart city thinking are significant. The MK:Smart exec team will continue to support the work of UKTI in this domain.