The FINANCIAL — Cisco on February 18 reaffirmed its commitment to fostering innovation in the UK through the expansion of its centre for collaborative research and emerging technology, Cisco CREATE.
Part of a global network of seven Internet of Everything (IoE) Innovation Centres, Cisco CREATE will be housed at Hackney Community College and will bring together start-ups, industry experts, developers and researchers to develop technology solutions, according to Cisco.
In 2014, Prime Minister David Cameron announced a commitment from the UK government to spend over £45m developing technologies based on the Internet of Things (IoT); in addition, in the last fortnight Ofcom confirmed their intention to investigate the appropriate regulatory framework to help the UK’s IoT market flourish. As the potential of the IoT is increasingly recognised as a significant opportunity for the UK, the Cisco CREATE IoE innovation centre provides an open environment that fosters ecosystem innovation to create ground-breaking and innovative solutions across areas such as energy, transport, healthcare and education.
“Digitisation poses a tremendous opportunity for the UK – from connecting transport networks, to the prospect that it holds for efficiency in our healthcare system. The connectivity of people, processes, data and things has the potential to transform industries, but no single organisation alone will be able to realise the opportunity,” said Phil Smith, Chief Executive, Cisco UK & Ireland.
“Cisco CREATE and our innovation programme are built on principles of partnership, open innovation and an ecosystem which empowers others to innovate. We’re extremely proud of what Cisco CREATE has achieved, which is why we are delighted to be announcing the trebling of the programme at our new facility in Hackney.”
Since inception in 2011 the Cisco CREATE programme has played host to a number of industry collaborations, both in the London IoE Innovation centre and as part of a broader programme at sites across the UK. A number of the projects are now in deployment, with a selection to be made available by Cisco globally, according to Cisco.
Programme highlights:
Transport: Station as a Service (StaaS) – Co-funded by Innovate UK and RSSB, StaaS is a two-year collaborative innovation project with the goal of creating a new technical, operational and commercial model for future stations. Partners in the initiative include industry leading organisations such as Telent, Abellio and Bronze Software Labs Ltd.
Based on real-life user scenarios, StaaS will address the connectivity demands of four groups: security providers, train operators, retailers and passengers. By converging various technologies such as Building Management, Internet of Things and Big Data, StaaS will benefit all groups involved.
Energy: Lighting as a service (LaaS) – Lighting is one of the highest fixed power needs in both public buildings and industry. LaaS (Light as a Service) is a two-year innovation project co-funded by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK. LaaS will bring to market lighting that is powered, connected and controlled by digital networks. This will create vast capabilities to manage smart loads, reduce costs and carbon emissions, and create new use cases for lighting. LaaS will open a new spectrum of digital innovation and change the way we think about light. Industry partners in the LaaS project include: amBX, pureLiFi and University of Strathclyde’s Technology Innovation Centre.
LaaS will serve as a pilot to demonstrate the Internet of Things for power networks in commercial building management.
Healthcare: Healthcare as a service (HaaS) – in partnership with Warrington CCG, Cisco has been investigating ways in which open standard approaches can be utilised to enable longer-term conditions to be more effectively managed at home – allowing hospitals to free up beds and A&E capacity to better deal with patients needing acute care.
Retail: The High Street Online Networked Environment (StONE) project is an SBRI feasibility study that aims to attract consumers back to UK high streets, to increase their time spent, their spend rates with local businesses, and the number and frequency of return visits.
It combines the online and physical realms to enable high street retailers to connect with customers, hyper-locally promote and market their business in a time-specific targeted way, and to gather business intelligence about customers’ behaviour. Partners in the project include KILTR, an online content sharing platform and a social and professional network.
As part of the initiative to enable collaborative innovation through the expanded Cisco CREATE IoE Innovation Center, the new facility in Hackney will include “/Dev/Innovate”, an on-premise innovation pod to enable further technical experimentation, with unlimited access to demonstrations and early releases across Cisco’s portfolio of products and services.
Cisco Internet of Everything Innovation Centers are places where start-ups, accelerators, developers, researchers, ecosystem partners and the venture community come together to create ground-breaking technology and innovative solutions for IoE. They can be found in Barcelona, Berlin, London, Rio de Janeiro, Songdo, Tokyo and Toronto.
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