Belfast City Council has launched an initiative to become a Smart City, looking at new and innovative ways to tackle traditional urban challenges and support the city’s aims and ambitions.

The council is working with the Future Cities Catapult and city partners to develop a long-term road map towards a smart Belfast. It also wants to work with local businesses, universities, community organisations and government agencies to find ways to make Belfast better through the use of information technologies and data analytics. As part of this, it has launched a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition in partnership with the Northern Ireland Land and Property Services and Future Cities Catapult.

The aim of the competition is to encourage the development of timely, accurate, cost effective and equitable solutions that can be implemented to maximise business rate revenue for the city.

During the competition a total budget of £130,000 will be available. In phase one, up to six companies will receive a maximum of £5,000 each to develop their ideas to concept stage. The best two or three of these will receive an equal share of the remaining £100,000 up to a maximum of £50,000 each to turn their ideas into commercially viable products to be sold.

  • To find out more about the competition, download the competition brief (PDF – 387KB)
  • To register your interest and enter the competition, visit the council’s tenders page to complete an application.
    Deadline for submissions: 12 noon, Friday 26 August 2016.

Other cities across the UK including Glasgow, Bristol, Liverpool and Milton Keynes have started to adopt similar approaches and are successfully using modern technologies to think differently about tackling city problems and addressing social, environmental and economic outcomes. These cities are receiving funding from a range of sources and co-investment opportunities including SME expertise to drive their own city growth and innovation agendas.

Belfast City Council wants a smart Belfast, harnessing the city’s state-of-the-art digital infrastructure, public open data, the world-class products of local data analytics and software SMEs, and the leading edge research of local researchers to create excellent services for its citizens.

It wants to support local companies to turn ideas into commercially successful products and it is currently trialling new methods of developing and fostering innovation.

Watch Belfast City Council’s Smart Cities video:

Meet and greet

Come along to a meet and greet on Tuesday 5 July at City Hall from 2pm to 4.30pm where you can discuss the types of innovations Belfast City Council is looking for. You’ll meet council officers and colleagues from Land and Property Services, Future Cities Catapult and Department for the Economy, and you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarification on the competition.

Sign up to register for the meet and greet event on Tuesday 5 July and to keep up to date with Smart City event emails.