Interview with Ashley Feldman – Tech UK and Deploying Smart Cities in the UK
Ashley Feldman leads the Transport, Environment and Cities work for Tech UK, the trade association for technology and innovation in the UK. Tech UK bring together technology vendors, integrators, and advisors to propel innovation.
Tech UK’s main role is to champion the positive contribution technology makes to the economy, society and environment. Leading the Transport, Environment and Cities work, Ashley speaks to Tech UK’s 1000+ member cohort who are making and developing solutions across the transport and cities domain, aiming to find out:
- What are these companies priorities?
- What is making them successful?
- How can Tech UK drive innovation in this space?
- How can Tech UK support these companies?
When answering these questions, Tech UK must find out and develop the best market placement for this technology.
When discussing if there are any particular challenges when bringing together all of these separate stakeholders, Ashley explained that there are challenges but aren’t too big to cause issue. As the ‘cross-industry voice’ to help drive innovation, Tech UK must assist in creating discussions, uniting the industry, and encouraging challenging conversations and help companies converse who normally wouldn’t in the sector.
At Solar and Storage live this year, Ashley is speaking on a panel titles ‘Developing Smart Cities for EV Integration’ at 13:00 in the Charge EV theatre on the 18th of October.
To begin this discussion, Ashley explained what a Smart City. To do this, he described what a Smart City is through 4 separate characteristics:
- The Role of Data and Data Sharing
- The Role of Integration
- More importantly lateral integration and ‘How can technology be integrated?’
- The Role of the Citizen
- Where smart cities were originally technology centric, they are now designed with users in mind.
- The Role of the eco-system
- Looking at how both public and private players can work together to drive innovation and technology.
Ashley explained these four characteristics working in collaboration with each other is the purest form of what a Smart City is. For technology to enable the development of Smart Cities, especially for EV integration, the technology must acknowledge these 4 characteristics.
Creating opportunity for citizens and making end users life easier in a wider eco-system is the focus of a smart city. Gathering data and insights is incredibly important to enable the simplicity of the smart city ecosystem. EVs being connected devices allow the data they collect to monitor the environment, air quality, congestion, road conditions, and availability of chargers in a city. Real time data can unlock a continuous flow of infrastructure and allow a safer, more environmentally friendly city.
Ashley Feldman concluded the discussion by explaining that the future of mobility is data driven, customer centric and more environmentally sustainable.
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