In this episode of The Smart City Podcast, I had a great chat with Place Maker Kylie Legge. Kylie is the founder of Place Score, we discuss how Place Score aims to positively change the way engagement with the community happens and change the way data is collected and stored in order to be used effectively used across multiple projects. Kylie and I discuss the need to think more holistically about assets and sharing the space we have, as well as how young people show up in the data and the smart city space. Kylie offers some great insights into thinking about how smart cities should focus on health and wellbeing and a systems approach to community making. We also touch on the importance of awareness into the impacts technology can have on a place so we can shape the outcomes positively.

Listen here:

What we cover in this episode:

• Kylie’s background and Kylie’s current role as Place Maker
• Why Kylie is interested in Smart Cities
• Kylie’s focus on the making the city better for human beings by using data to make evidence based decisions
• Smart Cities Council ANZ’s Built Environment Task Force
• The opportunity to share resources and the need to think holistically
• Kylie’s company Place Score and how they are changing the way community engagement happens
• How “access” can affect the workplace experience
• The current under-respresention of data for young people and Place Score’s focus on the engagement on “lost” demographics
• Kylie’s book Future City Solutions
• Putting mental health and the forefront and using Smart Cities to improve wellbeing
• Becoming leaders in Smart City thinking, systems and governance
• The impact of technology on social interaction and the places where people come together

Quotes:

“I was a little bit worried that with this new big trend and interest in Smart Cities we were going to forgot about the human beings. It would be all exciting about… Smart this and Smart that… but actually were we going to make cities better for people?”

“We need to start thinking much more holistically about where we invest, so those investments have the best return for whole community not just a single segment of the community”

“High care factor, low performance equals high priority. So we are aiming to be able to provide a transparent process for the community and a rigorous evidence-based dataset to the government to guide more effective investment in our urban environments”

“Nationally trending at the moment, particularly for younger people, is access to fresh air and natural light [at work] so when we understand what it is that people really value we can be talking to our built environment professionals saying “how do we get we get more of this?” because this is what actually makes people happy”

“fundamentally…the single biggest challenge we are facing as a country and as citizens is that our communities are getting sicker and sadder..if we can put [this] at the lead of [what] we are all going to work towards, that would allow us to integrate better as it would give us a common purpose”

“there is a real need for systematic change, rather than just focussing on the tech…as governance is going to be one of the biggest challenges”

“if we don’t have a knowledge economy, if we don’t have interesting jobs for the human being…we are going to run into big troubles because nobody wants to be treated like a robot and no-one wants to act like one”

Links:

Place Score http://www.placescore.org

Smart Cities Council ANZ Built Environment Taskforce https://anz.smartcitiescouncil.com/article/built-environment-task-force

Austrade Future Cities Jam https://www.austrade.gov.au/

Connect:

You can connect with Kylie Legge on LinkedIn and Twitter @place_score or via email kylie@placescore.org

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