Continuing our successful series of Hackathons in Manchester, we hosted our most recent event in our WELL Certified™ Gold office and offered attendees the opportunity to imagine the future design of Smart neighbourhoods in our city. We hear a lot about Smart, but what are the opportunities beyond apps? What can the data and technology we use every day tell us about how to live life more efficiently, more sustainably and enhance the quality of our lives?
The teams were shown a short video of the day in the life of a character ‘Phil’ and the levels of Smart technology and data he used; the judges were looking for ideas from our teams to push this further, to answer the challenge: ‘Create a SMART neighbourhood in Manchester’.
Four teams were assembled in their groups; GREEN, BLUE, PINK and RED and began their task, with some interesting debates as the attendees were encouraged to think big and “think future”!
The teams were looking at how a day would pan out for an individual in a Smart neighbourhood, analysing the future of home life, wellbeing, travel, workplace and sustainability.
Initial ideas focused a lot on sustainability and environmentalism. This included; smart waste systems, featuring technology that could sort through rubbish into correct recycling buckets, also ‘NINDER’ a neighbourhood meeting and sharing app integrated within your home to allow neighbours to share equipment and food, and communicate in a friendly neighbourly society, and lastly, alerts which can book your autonomous carpool vehicles to collect you at times based on the best air quality.
