News Edinburgh awards five-year contract to support smart city transformation
As part of the agreement, consulting firm CGI will deploy its SensorInsights360 real-time data platform to improve operational efficiencies while monitoring and managing critical services.
Edinburgh wants to provide more digitally enabled, proactive services for citizens
The City of Edinburgh has awarded a five-year contract to global IT and business consulting services firm CGI to help support its transformation to a smart city. CGI has been the primary provider of transformational ICT services to the city council since 2015.
The latest agreement includes deployment of the CGI SensorInsights360 solution to provide data insights, processes and tools required to achieve transformational change and deliver high-quality services to citizens of Scotland’s capital.
End-to-end data platform
CGI SensorInsights360 was originally developed by the company’s experts in Australia as a real-time data platform that delivers an end-to-end approach to the internet of things (IoT), asset data collection and asset management. It is agnostic and extendable and aims to identify ways to improve operational efficiencies while proactively monitoring and managing critical services.
Edinburgh will implement it through a smart city operations centre and it will deliver benefits such as more proactive estate management, creating better services and neighbourhoods for citizens and enabling healthier and safer social housing with increased sustainability and regulatory compliance. It will also improve waste management through the utilisation of smart bins, sustainable recycling and route optimisation.
The solution has been procured via a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant as part of the Scotland’s 8th City – the Smart City programme. The City of Edinburgh Council is delivering three projects budgeted at £6.4m of which £2.5m is part of the ERDF grant.
“Edinburgh has big ambitions in becoming a world-leading smart city – a digitally inclusive and sustainable city with services that are easily accessible by all of our residents no matter where they are in the city, or what their circumstances are,” said City of Edinburgh Council deputy leader Cammy Day.
“We’re looking to deliver a more digitally enabled proactive service to help make everyone’s lives in our Scottish capital better, and so we can continue our work towards ending poverty, meeting our net zero targets and improving wellbeing for all.”
CGI, which has also supported smart city projects in cities such as Montreal and Helsinki, has already been helping Edinburgh to progress its smart city efforts with its Edinburgh Learns for Life digital solution to transform learning and teaching in schools, which CGI said provides “equality of attainment” in education.
“We’re looking to deliver a more digitally enabled proactive service to help make everyone’s lives in our Scottish Capital better”
This is being achieved by deploying 39,000 iPads to 35,000 pupils and 4,000 teachers in more than 120 schools through a phased roll-out of digital devices to every school pupil from P6 to S6 beginning this month, with additional iPads issued to P1 to P5 year groups.
Day added: “We’re also fully committed to giving our young people the best possible start in life by better equipping them for their educational future.
“Through CGI, we believe we’ve found a strong partnership that will deliver on that world-leading vision and will change the way we provide our services to all, while providing benefits in our community – assisting businesses, groups and the environment by, for example, sponsoring playing kits for a number of school and sports teams, providing technical expertise and connectivity help for community groups and planting a hundred trees across the city.”
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