Newcastle City Council and Urban Foresight launch new smart city website: NCLEUS

Newcastle City Council today launched a new website to showcase the latest smart and sustainable developments taking place in the city.

NCLEUS.com profiles the projects, businesses, and research that have helped the city gain a global reputation for smart city innovation. Newcastle was recognised as UK Smart City of the Year 2019, Connected Britain’s Smart City Initiative 2020, and ranked 23rd on the global IMD Smart City index.

NCLEUS was developed by Urban Foresight and is a product of a pioneering smart city innovation partnership with Newcastle City Council. Over the last two years this partnership has developed more than 25 projects to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services. This includes piloting shared electric scooters across the city and using digital technologies to help vulnerable adults live more independently in their own homes.

NCLEUS also showcases innovative research from the city’s universities. This includes cargo carrying robots for older residents, and the Urban Observatory which maintains the UK’s largest set of publicly available real time data.

“Newcastle has a proud history of exporting world changing ideas and innovations. Today the city is embracing technology, data, and new ways of working to deliver better services and improve people’s lives,” said Councillor Ged Bell of Newcastle City Council.

“NCLEUS gives visibility to the exciting and innovative projects and companies within the local area. It also shows why Newcastle is seen as a great location for smart city businesses and investors.”

The website was developed Urban Foresight, which is based on Newcastle Helix. A key aim was to strengthen the city’s vibrant innovation community by creating new partnerships and commercial opportunities. It features a directory that profiles Newcastle’s smart businesses and contributed blogs from companies including The Algorithm People, ProxiSmart, NBS, and Grid Smarter Cities.

“Newcastle is a city that is buzzing with opportunities and advances in smart city technologies and services” said David Beeton, CEO at Urban Foresight. “NCLEUS provides a unique resource to share the ideas, insights and people that make Newcastle an ideal test bed for innovative new products and services.”

 

Any businesses or researchers in the city that would like to contribute to the site are invited to contact: ncleus@urbanforesight.org

 

About NCLEUS

NCLEUS is a new digital platform to share the projects, ideas, and learning from Newcastle’s ambitious smart city programme.

www.ncleus.com

Twitter: @NCLsmartcity

Email: ncleus@urbanforesight.org

 

About Newcastle City Council

As a local authority, the Council are responsible for public services in the city run by democratically elected councillors. The Council is ambitious for its city and its residents. They want Newcastle to be a fair, prosperous, outward-facing, innovative and vibrant city. They are guided by fairness, inclusion and social justice.

 

About Urban Foresight

Urban Foresight is the UK’s leading place-based innovation consultancy. The company works with ambitious organisations around the world on projects that improve lives, promote sustainability, and create new economic opportunities.

www.urbanforesight.org

@urbanforesight