Hi #SmartCommunity friends! Welcome back to another episode of the Smart Community podcast. In this episode I have a great conversation with Michael Healy and Grace de Leon from Smart Christchurch, in New Zealand. You might remember Michael as he has been on the podcast before, Episode 244 in 2021. Michael and Grace tell us about their backgrounds, and the biggest changes they’ve seen in the Smart Community space over the last 6 years including the shift from technology-first to community-first approaches. We discuss the maturing of the Smart Community conversation towards more collaborative and out-comes focused work, and the natural progression from buzz words and pilots to substance and getting a return on investment for Smart initiatives. 

Michael and Grace tells us about a couple of projects Smart Christchurch has been working on, including a fire detection network and a Smart View Data Sharing platform. We then talk about the Innovation Expo happening in Christchurch on the 10th and 11th of September 2023. I’m excited to be emceeing the event and can’t wait to be involved because they have some really interesting opportunities for engaging community and young people, not just the usual Smart City types. 

We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends and what we’d like to see next in the space, from eSports to Smart Regions. As always we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.

Listen here: 

What we cover in this episode:

• Grace and Michael’s respective backgrounds and what a Smart Community means to each of them
• The importance of citizen engagement and efficient public infrastructure
• The biggest changes they’ve seen in the Smart Community space over the last 6 years including the shift from technology-first to community-first approaches
• The maturing of the Smart Community conversation towards more collaborative and out-comes focused work
• The natural progression from buzz words and pilots to substance and getting a return on investment for Smart initiative
• The projects Smart Christchurch has been working on, including a fire detection network and a Smart View Data Sharing platform
• About the upcoming Innovation Expo in Christchurch on the 10th and 11th September 
• Why we need to be getting young people involved and excited about STEM
• The emerging trend of Smart concepts becoming more mainstream and having the community involved
• The opportunity of sharing IP between councils instead of reinventing the wheel
• The growing industry of eGaming and eSports and the business use of gamification
• Where to next for Smart Cities and Communities, including empowering others to be innovative and collaborative for economies of scales within local governments in New Zealand

Quotes:

“What’s the point of designing something because we thought we’re gonna be a Smart Community…and then find out that you’re actually putting it in a low socio economic background community, and probably no one will be able to afford [the changes]. So for me, citizen engagement is part of being a Smart Community.” Grace de Leon

“I suppose a key thing about challenges with resilience is, we don’t know what the next big thing is. And it might be quite local to Christchurch like the earthquakes were. Or it could be something that’s global, like climate change, or COVID. So a lot of what we’re trying to do is listen to community about what’s important to them, but also set them up for what challenges lie ahead.” ~ Michael Healy

“The community itself are actually Smarter as well, they now ask a lot of questions. They don’t just accept things when you present it to them [like they did before], they will actually ask you a lot of questions instead.” ~ Grace de Leon

“I think another thing that has changed over the last five years is that willingness to collaborate. So there is more collaboration among the other councils. And even within the communities, they are quite happy to collaborate with us, and with our private partners as well. So that’s a really good improvement that I’ve seen in last five years.” ~ Grace de Leon

“The funny thing about the collaboration piece [is that events like COVID are] forcing people to come together to collaborate. And once they get used to the collaboration—because collaboration is hard—they’re starting to see the benefits of working together. Whereas previously, we’ve limited some of those outcomes by working individually.” ~ Michael Healy

“We’ve come to a point where there’s almost too many data sets. And while some of them have some good storytelling elements, we want to take the next stage and actually start piecing together the data sets to tell much richer stories, and to give much richer value to the community. So we’ve been doing a co design exercise with our community since the start of the year. And it’s been really valuable for us.” ~ Michael Healy

Links: 

Episode 244 with Michael Healy 

Connect:

Connect with Grace and Michael on LinkedIn

Find out more about the Innovation Expo via the website Innovationexpo.nz 

Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

Podcast Production by Perk Digital