Future cities: UK mission to Australia
Innovate UK to take 15 entrepreneurs to Sydney and Melbourne to support collaboration and break into the global advanced urban services market.
View from the Sydney Tower Eye in Sydney, Australia.
Next week (12 and 16 March ), 15 UK entrepreneurs will travel to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia as part of an Innovate UK future cities mission.
These cities have demonstrated significant progress in sustainable living and smart infrastructure. The UK businesses to use the observations and connections they make on the visit to grow and scale up.
They will:
- meet with delegates from across Australia
- meet potential customers, partners and investors
- attend workshops
- explore export opportunities
The organisations
The entrepreneurs represent some of the UK’s most innovative companies. They include:
- Predina Tech - uses analytics and AI to predict the severity and cause of road traffic accidents
- JustPark - helps drivers to find parking spaces and homeowners to open up their spaces to the public
- Doordeck - an app that allows doors to be unlocked with a smartphone
- Inavya Ventures - digital profile creation used for personalised healthcare
- Loqiva - platform allowing civic and commercial providers to provide personalised services
- Grid Smarter Cities - connecting communities and people with transport and services
- Open Energi - provides data and insights so companies can reduce energy costs and emissions
- Bulweria - transport system for reducing cars on the road and improving companies vehicle use
- Citi Logik - urban analysis platform for public sectors organisations to understand movement of people
- Multipass - platform for transport operators that lets any sized provider use automated fare collection capabilities
- SEaB Energy - creating energy, water and fertiliser from organic waste
- Sunamp - low to zero-carbon heating, cooling and hot water systems for buildings
- Upside Energy - connects existing personal devices to manage flow of energy at peak times
- Digital Node - provides advice, support and insight on digitised solutions for the construction industry
- Westfield Technology Group - creates environmentally-friendly transportation for use on the road and in private locations
Why Australia
Australia was chosen because it is highly urbanised. It has taken a country-wide approach to smart city creation following the release of its government’s 2016 Smart Cities Plan.
Currently, 89% of the population live in urban areas in the country, which means it already faces a number of challenges. These include:
- an ageing population
- climate change
- water scarcity
- urban sprawl
- housing affordability
- congestion
Many of these challenges also affect the UK and their impact will grow as we head into the future.
Innovate UK’s missions
Our missions are intended to improve businesses’ access to knowledge, markets, skills and partners based outside of the UK to help remove the barriers to global growth.
They give businesses the opportunity to meet with potential collaborators and learn about local markets, new technologies and opportunities.
Previous missions have seen delegations taken to India and South East Asia.
This future cities mission to Australia is run by Innovate UK with the Department for International Trade and the Knowledge Transfer Network.
To find out about future opportunities email James Taplin, Innovation Lead, Innovate UK at james.taplin@innovateuk.gov.uk.