SUNDERLAND Software Centre played host to an event which saw students in the city rewarded for their innovative projects designed to help make Sunderland a smarter city, as part of a collaboration with business and technology services company, IBM.
The Smart City event on Wednesday (November 13), showcased the work of students in their second year at the University of Sunderland’s School of Computing after they explored how IBM currently works with cities around the world to bring its Smarter Planet vision to life.
The Smart City event was part of a series spread across three days and saw IBM deliver an introduction on their Smarter Cities initiative, while hosting workshops with eleven groups of students who were tasked with creating concepts that tackled some of the challenges Sunderland faces through technology. The students then presented their ideas to representatives from Sunderland City Council and the North East Local Enterprise Partnership on Wednesday evening.
The winning concept was awarded to the Incredible Binary Magicians, made up of students Jack Murrish, 19, Owen Haley, 20, Jonathan Defty, 19 and Matthew Dickinson, 18 for their project based on the use of intelligent advertising screens that have an embedded camera with the ability to scan people in the vicinity to target advertising based on their physical characteristics such as female or male, young or old, healthy body size or overweight.
Jack Murrish from Seaham, said: “We’re delighted to have been chosen as the Smart City challenge winner. Our project was based on the benefits of tailored advertising as we believe advertising messages that are reactive to a person’s physical profile, in a similar manner as online advertising is reactive to peoples online profiles, will be more positively received than traditional advertising. This concept also benefits the local business community by targeting and encouraging consumers to shop locally so we have high hopes that it will be a success.”
The winning group will visit IBM’s Innovation Centre in Hursley, Winchester, to tour the innovation laboratories and meet with leading IBM technologists.
The multi-million pound Sunderland Software Centre has a contract with IBM that sees it act as the building’s managed service provider (MSP), delivering support to its tenants and providing equipment to the flagship site. As well as equipping the building with the latest IT and AV equipment, the contract also includes an events programme delivered to tenants by IBM.
Kevin Farrar, IBM academic initiative and IBM global entrepreneur lead who spearheaded the event, said: “IBM believes that new relationships between cities, universities, business incubators and the private sector are crucial to the ability of cities and communities to flourish economically and socially.
“This week students from the University of Sunderland worked with IBM consultants to explore their own ideas about how technology could be used to make Sunderland smarter. They addressed challenges in areas such as healthcare, mobility and public safety; using technologies spanning cloud, mobile, analytics and social business. Tapping into these enterprising and entrepreneurial minds is a fantastic way to explore innovative new ideas and takes Sunderland City Council one step further towards becoming a Smarter City.”
Councillor Harry Trueman, deputy leader of Sunderland City Council was part of the judging process and believes the event was a great opportunity to share best practice between IBM and software students in the region.
He said: “We’re delighted to have such a strong relationship with IBM and it’s been fantastic to see the role they have played in developing ideas with computing students in the region. Events such as Smart City provide a great opportunity to showcase the highly skilled set of students here in Sunderland and I am sure that those who were fortunate enough to be part of the event will take a great deal from it.”
Alastair Irons, head of department of computing, engineering and technology at the University of Sunderland, said: “The Smart City event was a wonderfully exciting series of events for students at the University of Sunderland – giving them the opportunity to be creative and pitch innovative technology ideas to help Sunderland become a smarter city. The event gave students the opportunity to develop their skills in problem solving, team working, collaboration and delivering presentations and they were particularly enthused by the opportunity to be mentored by colleagues from IBM.
“The whole event was a tremendous success and was the culmination of a great collaborative work between IBM, Sunderland City Council, Sunderland Software City and the University of Sunderland. I’m already looking forward to repeating the event in the future.”
Sunderland Software Centre is part financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme, which is one of the funds established by the European Commission to help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support local businesses and create jobs. For more information visit www.gov.uk/browse/business/funding-debt/european-regional-development-funding
For more information about Sunderland as a place for software businesses, visit www.makeitsunderland.com, email info@makeitsunderland.com or call +44 (0) 191 305 1194.
