CityCast - Episode 16: The Finale, Pt. 2

Picking up right from where we left off in Episode 15, the second half of our two-part finale sees the CityVerve leadership team looking to the future. Manchester City Council's Mark Duncan, MSP's Rowena Burns and Cisco's Nick Chrissos have all played key roles at the helm of the project, and in this - the very last episode in the CityCast series - they discuss what happens next. Not just in terms of what happens to CityVerve, but where the project has left the smart city sector more broadly. They discuss how what's happened here in Manchester will inform the city's imminent future, as well as how the city authorities and partners involved in the project are already working with cities all over the world - in places as far flung as Australia and China - to pass on their experiences and expertise. We ask Rowena, Mark and Nick what their must-have ingredients would be if designing a utopian city from scratch - and find out whether the past two years of working on CityVerve have changed how they think about the cities we live in.

For our final episodes of CityCast, we want to send the project off in style. That's why, over the course of our two-part finale, you'll be hearing from the people responsible for keeping CityVerve on track and staying at the very forefront of smart city innovations. Regular listeners will recognise Rowena Burns as a former host of this podcast series, but she's also been instrumental in steering the CityVerve project as MSP's chief executive. Cisco's Nick Chrissos has been responsible for technical delivery of the project as a whole, and has plenty to share about the new challenges and experiences the past two years have thrown up. And from a Manchester City Council perspective, Mark Duncan has been on hand to make sure that the city's objectives are being met - and learning lots about futuristic IoT technology in the process! In this episode, the leadership team reflect on what's been achieved, overcome and celebrated on the project to date. What went well? What didn't turn out as expected? And, most importantly, what have we learned in the process? Part two will cover off what happens next for the project, and where our discoveries will take us next...

We're on a whistle-stop tour of Manchester this month, talking about power in some of its many forms. We investigate the future of energy provision with Bruntwood's Bev Taylor and the shiny new Tesla battery at Manchester Science Park.  With Clicks + Links, we hop aboard a Mobike and find out how virtual reality and pedal power is transforming the way city and transport planners approach their role of shaping the way we move around our cities. And we also hear from the Robot Orchestra Collective - in more ways than one - about how they're using data produced by the city and its occupants to make music and perform in new and innovative ways.

CityCast returns - and we've been painting a portrait of our city and its people. In this month's episode, writer and filmmaker David Petch came into the studio to talk about the film he's making about Manchester - and how it ties into the citizen-centric approach to smart cities that CityVerve promotes. We also reported from our three-day 'conference-as-lab' called Every Thing Is Connected, and tested out a new walking tour of Manchester that traces some of the pioneering innovations that the city claims as its own.

Having battled off the Beast From The East, we’re back for another episode of CityCast. This month, FAULT LINES artist Ling Tan joined us in the studio to talk about her upcoming SUPERGESTURES performances, the various workshops that she’s run to get the project to this stage, and her own recent brush with the wintry weather. We also reported from the Open Innovation selection day, held at the Bright Building in Manchester. David Crookes, one of our Citizen Journalists, was there to meet the start-ups pitching their ideas and speak with the judges who’d be deciding on the final cohort. Anne Dornan, meanwhile, was up against the clock in Meet The Partners – introducing us to the work that MSP leads on in the CityVerve project.