Glasgow Wins £24m Future City Funding

Glasgow has been chosen as the Technology Strategy Board’s ‘Future Cities Demonstrator’ and will receive £24 million in government funding to demonstrate how “a city of the future will work.”

The Scottish city beat off stiff competition from 30 other urban areas in the UK and will show how providing integrated services across health, transport, energy and public safety can improve the local economy and enhance the quality of life for citizens.

The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) invited cities with a population of at least 125,000 residents to bid in June, promising to award the money to whoever submitted the proposal that best demonstrated the additional value that can be created by integrating a city’s systems.

Glasgow future city funding

“This is a huge boost to Glasgow’s ambitions to build a better future for our city and its people,” said councillor Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council. “This investment and the work we will be doing will put us at the forefront of innovative and smart cities not just in the UK but in Europe and beyond.”

“This will help us to create a more efficient and a more sustainable city which can adapt and move ahead of the technology of the day and make it work for everyone who lives or works in Glasgow,” he added.

Glasgow will undertake a series of projects to improve transport and mobility across the city and will develop programmes to promote healthy living, provide advanced street lighting to address community safety and perception of crime and enhance building energy efficiency to provide affordable warmth

“Value will be created by capturing and opening up data, improving the city’s real-time operations with a city dashboard and a management system that views the city as an integrated whole, and a ‘MyGlasgow’ public window on the city to deliver multiple benefits for the people of Glasgow,” said Iain Gray, chief executive of the TSB.

In March 2011, Glasgow became the first UK city to receive funding from the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge initiative, which provides access to IBM experts who analyse and recommend ways the city can use technology to improve efficiency, support growth and deliver better services and levels of citizen engagement.

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