Bristol is Open (BiO) is calling out for projects and partners to test their smart city technology on its citywide network test bed.
Putting citizens at the centre of their strategy, Bristol is Open is aiming to explore how tech can positively impact on livelihoods and, at scale, driving the development of technoethics in developing a future Smart City that benefits everyone.
Bristol is Open is an experimental optic fibre broadband, wireless and high-performance computing infrastructure that will stimulate and study the convergence in cities of different telecommunication, software, hardware, data and sensing technologies. It currently has around 10 projects running on the platform, covering areas such as smart home and energy, live energy consumption data from smart goods, and air quality and mobility data to help identify the least polluted and safest routes to walk around the city.
Julie Snell, Managing Director at Bristol is Open, commented, “Bristol is Open has an exciting future. True smart city innovation positively impacts on citizen’s lives, whether we are aware of it or not, and that is at the centre of our purpose. We are driving citizen wellbeing improvements through technical and digital means by partnering with community and urban organisations such as Knowle West Media Centre and we want to do more. Our living lab allows for street-level projects to be rigorously tested on our private, secure network to manage risk and feasibility before implementation.”
The current Bristol is Open infrastructure consists of an optic fibre ring with four network nodes at WeThe Curious, Watershed, Engine Shed, University of Bristol MVB with multiple forms of wireless connectivity e.g. WiFi, LiFi, LTE, Mimo, Wiso, 2,3,4,5G and a wide area wireless mesh network. This optic fibre ring network also links University of Bristol’s own 5G network hardware in the Millennium Square area to the University network. What this adds up to is a unique, city owned private network that allows Bristol to experiment with smart city solutions that can scale. Bristol is Open’s call out is for projects and partners from all over the globe to use the city’s test bed for scalable, citizen-centric tech collaborations.
The time is now right for researchers, startups, scaleups, well-established organisations and government agencies to take advantage of this world leading test bed, and respond to the call for experimentation.
More information about Bristol is Open can be found at http://www.bristolisopen.com
