Recent research by Arqiva and YouGov found that 96% of respondents, selected from the British population, were unaware of any Smart city projects run by their local councils. According to Arqiva, nearly a quarter of those taking part in the poll were also unclear about any one main benefit of these initiatives.

This is a great shame and missed opportunity. With so much investment in Smart cities now happening in the UK, citizens should be made more aware of the positive value being created. They should be encouraged to get involved to reduce costs and risks of new service development and to ensure needs and behaviours are properly accounted for in all aspects of design - before, during and after launch - so there is a lasting impact.

At Stickyworld, we’ve built a platform that enables city leaders and technologists to raise awareness of their smart initiatives and to support the necessary involvement of citizens in the successful adoption of Smart cities innovations.

Smart cities is the term used to describe the use of smart technologies and data as the means to solve cities’ increasing sustainability challenges – economic, transport, social and environmental issues. One possible reason for the lack of citizens’ understanding and belief in the value of Smart cities, could be that, until a few years ago, the general approach was very much a ‘top down’ one focusing on investment in technology, efficiency and better planning using integrated data.  

But increasingly ‘bottom up’ approaches are gaining more support by Smart city planners. These focus on citizens and how they can use innovative technologies, such as social media, mobile apps and open data, to create solutions to issues that matter to them. There are some good examples of citizen engagement emerging including MK Smart with Our MK which enables local people to suggest new ideas to make Milton Keynes a smarter city, in London where the Future Cities Catapult is encouraging citizen co-design to unearth smarter approaches to life in London, and with the Living Labs approach as seen in Bristol and managed by the Knowle West Media Centre whose manifesto includes a commitment to provide “more support for people to co-design their future”.    

A design-led and people-centred approach is being developed with citizens playing a more central role and co-creating services. New ideas can be implemented at lower cost and risk and with greater effect than councils can achieve on their own. Technology is not just seen as way to drive new levels of efficiency, but as an enabler of new forms of continuous citizen participation and co-creation necessary in our fast changing world.   

Stickyworld’s online platform is one of these enabling technologies. It’s a low cost, effective way to empower citizens and stakeholders to get involved with Smart city plans – enabling you to share your vision, extend conversations beyond one-off events and consultations and involve more people. Because of its unique capabilities to enable conversations online around visual media, including maps, videos and virtual tours, it’s ideal for collaboration around complex ideas and the challenges faced by cities. If you'd like to learn more about Stickyworld please watch our 5 minute webinar.

If a similar poll to that conducted by Arqiva and YouGov investigating citizens' awareness and buy-in of Smart city initiatives is carried out next year, I hope we might see some different results. It’s clearly vital to the successful growth and adoption of Smart cities technologies that more citizens should become aware and get involved in having a say about how and where they see the progress of Smart cities in the UK.