Milton Keynes is one of the fastest growing cities in the UK and a great economic success story.However, the challenge of supporting sustainable growth without exceeding the capacity of the infrastructure is a major one. MK:Smart is a large collaborative initiative to leverage IoT and innovative solutions to support economic growth in Milton Keynes. Central to the project is the creation of a state-of-the-art ‘MK Data Hub’ which supports the acquisition and management of vast amounts of data relevant to city systems from a variety of data sources. These include data about energy and water consumption, transport data, data acquired through satellite technology, sensor networks, social and economic datasets, and crowd-sourced data from social media or specialized apps. The MK Data Hub enables a data-centric approach to open innovation and provides a platform that can be used to create and deliver apps and services to address the challenges of an expanding city. The MK Data Hub not only enables universities, high tech businesses and incubators to quickly and securely deliver IoT applications that unlock the value in the city’s data, but also accelerates economic growth in Milton Keynes by promoting the creation of new local business ventures.
