Developing Cities for the Future Conference

Romal Capital – Greg Malouf, Founder & Chief Executive

Romal Capital are behind a £100 million plan to transform a derelict site in Liverpool into a thriving waterfront community, brimming with smart technology. The scheme will include 330 highly sustainable smart homes as well as retail space, amenities and a regenerated historic waterfront. The smart homes will include power usage monitoring systems, solar panels and EV charging stations. Greg will discuss the use of smart technology in the development and how it will help create a sustainable and futureproofed neighbourhood.

Nesta Challenges – Kathy Nothstine, Head of Future Cities

At Nesta Challenges, Kathy is the Lead for Future Cities, where she focuses on place-based innovation and empowering cities to shape their destiny. Kathy is passionate about cities and communities, and has over a decade of experience in urban planning and working with local governments. She has designed and delivered capacity-building and technical assistance programmes to identify and scale up transformative new approaches to creating stronger communities and economies based on local assets and place-based strategies. She has worked on rural and urban development and regeneration schemes, planning proposals and transport plans in the public and private sector.

Belfast City Council – James Noakes, City Innovation Broker

James is a renowned expert in smart cities and works on the city’s exciting smart city programme, supporting the £350 million Belfast City Deal. Smart Belfast’s projects include a £33m scheme to develop a zero emission ferry, the introduction of smart loading zones which will help cut congestion and pollution and an £8m project to use innovative means of regenerating the historic ‘Maritime Mile’ along the city’s waterfront. Prior to his current role he was Assistant Mayor for Liverpool where his responsibilities included  Liverpool’s smart city programme, he oversaw £2bn in infrastructure investment and embedded smart cities thinking into the fabric of the council.

Argent – Claudine Blamey, Head of Sustainability and Digital Strategy

Argent is well-known for delivering some of the best mixed-use developments in the UK. The developers are always at the forefront in delivering smart technology and working within sustainability targets. With a number of ongoing projects, such as Tottenham Hale and Brent Cross Town, Claudine joins us to offer insight into the advancements Argent has made regarding construction technology and will highlight innovations that ensure their developments are sustainable and fit for our future cities.

Transport for Greater Manchester – Conor Chaplin, Innovation Strategy Officer

Working in the Innovation Strategy team at Transport for Greater Manchester, Conor is leading on micro mobility and mobility-as-a-service, as well as supporting GM Cycle Hire, connected and autonomous vehicles, 5G and AI. He is responsible for the development and delivery of long-term innovation strategy for transport in Greater Manchester that aligns with strategic goals and programmes such as decarbonisation, increasing digital provision for public services, and the Greater Manchester Transport Strategy 2040. He will discuss TfGM’s smart cities strategy and a number of projects they are working on including smart traffic signals, connected and autonomous vehicles, AI controlled traffic junctions and more.

Sunderland City Council – Liz St Louis, Assistant Director, Smart Cities

Sunderland was named UK smart city of the year for 2020 for its forward thinking approach and the pace at which they are driving forward projects to embed an augmented digital infrastructure. The city council are moving forward with projects including upgrades to vital digital infrastructure connecting the city through the continuing rollout of free ultrafast public wi-fi with download speeds surpassing the first 5G cities, expansion of the National Assistive Technologies test-bed, delivering solutions to enable vulnerable people to live safely at home, reducing social care intervention and the implementation of transport solutions for traffic mapping to inform future traffic flow and allow real-time traffic management.

E.ON UK – Phillip McDermott, City Energy Transformation Lead

E.ON have been partnering with cities in the UK and Europe for more than 30 years and have been using smart technologies to create decarbonised, smart local energy systems, drive energy efficiency and renewable generation, enable electrified transport and even satellite heat mapping. They have invested heavily to achieve these aims with £600m in domestic energy efficiency funding, £215m in bio-energy projects and £75m in city energy solutions spent in the past 10 year. Philip will discuss E.ON’s work to use technology to help cities tackle the climate emergency, whilst also becoming better places to live, learn and work.

BSI – Emilia Cardamone, Programme Manager – Digital Construction

BSI is a global brand and network of 4,600 people supported by 12,200 industry experts helping organisations implement collective best practice, training delegates and certifying management systems each year. The business improvement partner, worked in collaboration with the IPA and over 100 built environment professionals to produce Digital Transformation report in 2019.  Emilia is a technical expert for BIM, Smart Cities and Communities and Reduction of Carbon within Infrastructure Projects. Her role also includes supporting the digital transformation within the built environment sector via stakeholder engagement.

DG Cities – Balazs Csuvar, Head of Delivery

DG Cities is the commercial smart cities arm of the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It enables the organisation to work flexibly with external partners in research consortia, local government, consultancy and other new business opportunities related to smart city development.

Balazs leads the delivery of their innovation projects, solving challenges through the integration of new technologies and holistic thinking. His recent projects have included the Smart Mobility Living Lab: London, Project Endeavour, D-Risk and the fleet electrification strategy for the Royal Borough of Greenwich

Kensa Contracting – David Broom, Commercial Director

David has 13 years of experience working with the design and application of ground source heat pumps. David joined Kensa in 2008 and works on large complex commercial applications of ground source heat pump projects. In his time with the company, he has played a key role in establishing shared ground loops as a recognized solution for tackling fuel poverty, carbon reduction, air quality and energy security in both the social housing and new build development sector.

Hull City Council – Adam Jennison, Smart City Lead

Hull City Council have been working in collaboration with technology company Connexin to deliver the Smart City Operating System project. The city has spent the last few years quietly updating its digital infrastructure, paving its way to become the UK’s first full-fibre city, featuring the fastest broadband of anywhere in the UK. The project has increased and enhanced data sharing and decision-making, allowing the Council to deliver more effective services across local sectors, from traffic management to health and social care.

Built Environment Networking – Amanda Griffiths, Director

Amanda is one of the Co-Founder’s of Built Environment Networking – formed almost 10 years ago.

She’ll be hosting throughout the day, running the days proceedings and managing the interaction between our delegates and the speakers.

ABB – Nigel Thomas, National Specification & Projects Manager, UK

Nigel has worked for ABB Electrification for 14 years and has over 30 years’ experience within the building services sector, working with design consultants and contractors. He has a wide-ranging expertise in building services within the built environment.

Schneider Electric – Chair: Kasim Mohammed, Vice President of Digital Energy, UK & Ireland

Schneider’s purpose is to empower all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. We call this Life Is On.

Our mission is to be your digital partner for Sustainability and Efficiency.

We drive digital transformation by integrating world-leading process and energy technologies, end-point to cloud connecting products, controls, software and services, across the entire lifecycle, enabling integrated company management, for homes, buildings, data centres, infrastructure and industries.

We are the most local of global companies. We are advocates of open standards and partnership ecosystems that are passionate about our shared Meaningful Purpose, Inclusive and Empowered values.