Milton Keynes will once again join the top table at an international conference on smart cities and how technology can make lives better – this time in Shanghai’s famous Expo Centre.
Milton Keynes Council Leader Pete Marland and Director of Strategy Geoff Snelson will join delegates from around the world at the Huawei Connect 2016 conference at the end of the month [August].
The council is a key member of the MK:Smart consortium, led by The Open University and supported by BT, which is developing innovative solutions to support economic growth in Milton Keynes.
The Council’s presence at the conference is being funded by Huawei itself, which is drawing together experts from leading UK and world cities for the event.
Huawei is one of the world’s leading ICT specialist companies, which strengthened the MK:Smart team when it became an official partner in August 2015.
Cllr Marland said: “Milton Keynes is at the forefront of cutting edge technology and all round smart thinking and we were pleased to be invited to sit at the ‘world table’.
“I’m looking forward to speaking with our contemporaries and peers from organisations involved in pioneering new technologies, and to discuss how this can benefit Milton Keynes, and how we can help them.”
In recent years Milton Keynes has been represented at similar key events both within Europe and again in China, which have helped the city establish itself as a global centre for technology innovation.
Geoff Snelson added: “Milton Keynes’ smart cities credentials are enviable – driverless pods, electric buses, the internet of things, to name but a few – and there is much more to come. The recent MK Futures 2050 highlighted the importance of building on this success to ensure our economy remains competitive over the long-term in these new industrial sectors.”
Alan Fletcher, Business Development Manager at The Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute, will continue to raise MK:Smart’s profile in China by addressing government officials and executives from around that world at the Smart City InFocus 2016 conference in Yinchuan in September.