A consortium of six UK SMEs have been awarded a share of £50,000 to solve city challenges in London using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.
The competition involves six startups trying to solve city challenges in the capital using IoT, and is funded by the Future Cities Catapult, a government supported centre of excellence in urban innovation.
The ideas include tackling noise pollution, making cycling safer and helping the NHS better utilise space. The winners will receive up to £10,000 each, which they will use this to develop and demonstrate connected devices in London using the Things Connected Low-Power LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network).
The startup proposals include:
- Beringar (Edinburgh), which is testing light and environmental sensors to identify unallocated and under-utilised space within the health estate. An idea which has the potential to increase patient convenience, save money and ultimately help the NHS improve the quality of care.
- BuggyAir (London) will develop its prototype to provide real-time information on pedestrian and cyclist’s exposure to pollutant, using route visualisation and comparison.
- Fosters and Partners (London) is developing a system to monitor noise pollution in capital, allowing ordinary people to collect and visualise local information about the sound around them. This could enable Londoners to mitigate the effects of noise and give people a basis for informing policy to shape their community.
- Joyride Technologies (London) in partnership with the London Cycling Campaign, will be using sensors to collect information about how families commute around the city as cyclists. This can then be considered in the infrastructure planning process.
- KloudKeeper (Exeter) will demonstrate its smart rainwater capture, reuse and release hardware, minimising flooding and reducing water demand.
- Nymbly (Cambridge) are testing its air quality management app that has a direct impact on health in the workplace. The newly designed advanced sensors offer data accuracy to room level and through data modeling, informs building owners to take action by improving the ventilation system, humidity control or filtering.