Episode Transcript
Darach Mac Donncha 00:00:00 I, I don't think there's any shame in kind of saying that things evolve over time and you get better, but the lessons that could have been learned for the, the rollout of the student workshops, there's definitely lessons there that can be learned that can be applied in, um, in the context of corporates or local authorities, or ideally with communities.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:00:24 Welcome to Smart in the City - the BABLE Podcast, I am your host Tamlyn Shimizu, and really at BABLE, we aim to connect the players in the smart city industry with high quality information and ideas through our platform and services. This podcast is really an extension of this goal and mission to drive the change for a better urban life. Before we get started, I wanted to inform all you lovely listeners about a great opportunity. BABLE has extended the deadline for the innovation market watch for 2023. So top smart city companies are invited to apply before the 30th of September and it's completely free. So just follow the link in the show notes. So welcome back to our series with Dublin. Uh, during this episode, we are venturing into Smart Docklands, uh, located in the heart of the city and, uh, a major center of innovation and employment for the city. Uh, and today, of course, another special guest with us at Darach Mac Donncha, who is a program manager at Smart Docklands. Thanks for being with us today Darach.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:01:38 Thanks a million Tamlyn. Uh, no pressure calling me an expert, but I'll happy to serve and, and really forward to
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:01:45 Yeah, yeah, no pressure, no pressure, but I know you're very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about everything with smart Docklands. So
Darach Mac Donncha 00:01:53 Pressure is a privilege.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:01:55 <laugh> good. I like that, uh, to start us off. So, uh, and I'm wondering to get us a bit warmed up in this, in the spirit of things. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, if you could, uh, pick three words to describe Smart Docklands, what would those three words be?
Darach Mac Donncha 00:02:13 I, I could probably pick three that would be the exact same, I would say engagement, collaboration, partnership. But if I was gonna go for three, I'd probably say engagement, connectivity, and, um, environment probably. And then to address like climate change. Yeah. But I probably have engagement there to the, for, to be honest.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:02:33 So engagement is seeming like the, the forefront of this conversation, but yeah,
Darach Mac Donncha 00:02:39 I'm, I'm not so subtly, uh, signposting engagement as a big thing
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:02:42 Good. Good. Well, I'm excited to talk about that. Um, so without further ado, we'll just jump right in. Um, can you tell us a little bit about your background though? Um, how did you get started with this?
Darach Mac Donncha 00:02:56 Yeah, so, uh, I was, um, I was from a research perspective. I was on a research program that was looking at smart cities from 2013-14 for a couple of years. And we were looking at smart cities and how they develop in practice. And we had two test cities. We had Dublin and Boston and we were based in Maynooth University, just it's in Kildare, just outside Dublin. And at the time it was about, you know, kind of marrying what the theoretical considerations around smart cities were with what was happening in practice. And at the time Dublin was just kicking off its smart city journey was trying to articulate what a smart city was, what it, the city could take an active role in it. And, uh, this person called Jamie C., came out to Maynooth University one day and he spoke about Dublin's vision for a smart city.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:03:47 And he said, look, we're trying to develop this unit in part of the embedded within the council and trying to coordinate all this sort of stuff. And I remember going back thinking, uh, that's nice. I'll probably never see him again. <laugh> and then faster, a couple of years, things are an awful lot different. And basically, you know, from that, um, I had built up a, you know, a, a very like small scale relationship with Jamie and the initial team as to what it was, what they were going about doing. And at the time it was really two or three people who were involved and it's, it's, it's banned now to, you know, 30 people. And when you take in, uh, different partnerships that we have at university that goes up to that multiplies to 40, 50, 60 people very quickly. Um, but really, I, I, I went to Vancouver in 2019 and smart Dublin was developing districts like smart Docklands and other ones like smart Dún Laoghaire and DCU.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:04:44 And, um, I was in Vancouver and, uh, things were going fine and it was coming up towards the end of my two year period. And it was, um, there's gonna be a whole host of Irish people living in Vancouver for the next while. So there's, you get a two year visa and essentially at the end of the two year visa, you decide if you wanna stay on and you can apply for a five year visa or you can do whatever. But we were coming to the, myself, my girlfriend were coming to the end of this and I said, uh, I'm not going to be looking for something unless it's smart city specific. And there's a, it's a step book in my career. And I, I never went on kin, but like never to be honest, I do it a lot more routinely now, but I went on LinkedIn the next day and I saw this job offer, offer, pop up for this job can for a smart documents program manager.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:05:32 And I don't really believe in faith, but I probably believe in timing. And I kind of thought that's exactly what I, I just backed myself is the coroner to look for this job. And thankfully everything worked out. Um, so I did the interview at, at four o'clock in the morning with time difference. Um, so that was, uh, I was in a room that was a lot dimly, more dimly lit than this. So I had about 20 candles in the room to try and, and give some artificial light in the interview. But, um, yeah, thankfully it worked out and yeah, haven't looked back since it's been, it's been really good. Like it's been, it was, it was a main reason to come back for, and I'm like, I'm really delighted that the, the job lived up to what it expected it could have been. And it's been, yeah, it's been really, really enjoyable.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:06:16 That's quite the story. And, uh, I guess also the more of the story is then for a job interview, make sure you have romantic mood lighting in the background and you're, you're sure fit for the job. Right. So, uh, yeah. So about smart Docklands then. So, um, what are, what makes smart Docklands special? What are some special highlights maybe from smart Docklands? And, um, I, I guess we also spoke, you know, with smart DCU, like what makes it stand out from what are the differences in your programs?
Darach Mac Donncha 00:06:48 Yeah, so I mean like a big part of the, uh, the smart districts model is that we are trying to collaborate with different people. So myself, Kieran from DCU, Connor from Dún Laoghaire, um, Barry Rogers, who would be over the smart tourism program, like we do meet to try and make sure that there is a sense of alignment, but the difference between the smart districts is that there's probably a different thematic focus on them. So Kieran's his, you know, he's the microcosm of the city, but in Docklands, it's really about education, engagement and connectivity as a baseline. So the connectivity that underpins everything that wants to happen with a smart city. So that's the provision of open, open wifi in a city, or it's the future of 5g in a city. Um, if we stay long enough, it'll go from 5g to 60 and everything that has to happen in that regard maybe.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:07:38 And it's really, I suppose, what makes it unique is that it's an engagement program to accelerate sustainable innovation in cities and it's co-funded, and it is a partnership between Dublin city council and the Science Foundation Ireland research centre, uh, connect, which is the centre for, uh, everything focused on future networks and connectivity. So their expertise is everything from, uh, telecommunications and all the research and development around it. So we're really at the epicentre of everything from the expertise that we get from the connect centre, from the connectivity focus side of things. But then we are the area that the Dublins is it's it's, it's probably is quite unique to other areas in the city because there's a really high density of high tech companies in the area. A lot of them have their EMEA headquarters there, all the Meta, Twitter, Google, everybody is kind, it's kind of in this very small density of an area, as well as that, like, you have like a very vibrant startup ecosystem and you have a lot of people popping up with that.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:08:44 You have that through Dogpatch Labs, you have it through Trinity's tangent program, which is another startup ecosystem. And our role really is to act as an honest broker or I've, I've kind of tried to say it in the little while we react to the middle man. And we're kind of working between, we're trying to work in the nexus between, um, academia, local central government tech companies, businesses, um, NCE groups and communities to try and see if we can address local challenges. And we can maybe highlight what people are doing at different times. And a, and a big part of it is identifying, you know, innovation that's already going on in the documents, because a big part of what the district approach tries to show is that like, you know, that there was a lot of before smart Dublin became a thing, there was smart projects, but it probably wasn't coordinated in any kind of systemic way.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:09:39 And that's a big part of what we are trying to do here. And then obviously then, um, we probably do have a focus on engagement through a couple of things that I can speak about later, but yeah, really, we're just kind of, we're at the doorstep of a lot of different things and we're in the middle and, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's very exciting and, and it leads to, to be honest, a very varied day. So like if I take, honestly yesterday, yesterday, I had conversations with academic researchers about nature based solutions, citizen science solutions, how we could incorporate the local community into citizen science projects, everything from engagement to students, um, hiring a role to look at training, local authority staff and upskilling them on smart city technologies up until, uh, including as well, a meeting with Google and their environmental insights team as well as then being at a pitch for, uh, student demos from Dogpatch Labs about kind of young entrepreneurs. And they're kind of looking at stuff that they could do so the day is kinda extremely varied, but it keeps it very exciting. And thankfully it keeps it very fresh.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:10:47 Yeah. You sound busy also, um, coordinating.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:10:50 Yeah. My email works, my email works. I’ll put it that way.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:10:53 Coordinating a lot of moving pieces. So, um, do you have perhaps a, a story, so a project or something along those lines that you would like to highlight and in particular, um, I always like asking together with that maybe a challenge, um, with the project, some kind of lesson learned as well.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:11:14 Yeah. So I, I, I, I can kind of give like the, the lineage of the kind of smart Docklands was, it was, it was launched in 2018 and it was launched at a global gathering of city technology and information leads. And at the time it was done in partnership with the, the Harvard technology and entrepreneurship centre. And it was really selected, uh, to be a smart city testbed in a designated part of the city. So it was really about, uh, fast tracking innovation in a part of the city and kind of working with, um, different operational units in Dublin city council, working with researchers and then working with the various different types of communities, be their residents, uh, businesses, uh, tech, academia research centres. And it was about kind of like fast tracking stuff and kind of going from there. So it was about testing and trialing solutions.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:12:01 So what happened was, it was probably, you would have an emphasis on you. Did you used community engagement to articulate, uh, challenges that were, um, affecting the local community? And we, the, the team did that before and there was, they addressed like challenges and they had about 300 challenges that were affecting different ways. And they did like systemic review of that. And they tried to, to come up with solutions based off that. And some of the pilots they developed, you know, have been thankfully were lucky that some of the pilots that developed have gone on and they have become business usual services or they've been scaled up, which is fantastic. Um, but I suppose in terms of highlighting one, what we kind of found as we were kind of developing up is, is really that, you know, as you're continuing to develop pilots and whatnot, you need to marry engagement and awareness with an increased level of training mm-hmm <affirmative>, and that's only become more and more important as time has gone on.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:13:00 So a lot of the times, if you're, if you're seeing like, like the pilots that have gone on the work that went into them was absolutely phenomenal because you have to organize the innovative, and it was an innovative procurement model to was developed to allow these sort of pilots to go in, but pilots are, can be a real laborer love. And like, you're trying to create champions to get champions there. You're trying to get them there. You're trying to, essentially, you're trying to work with units to kind of say, here's how this piece of technology could help your day to day services or your business as usual services. And you're trying to put that on top of their day to day work practices. So they have a certain amount of stuff that they need to do. And then you're trying to say, this could help you as well, but it might be additional workload for them.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:13:45 And then you some at, at sometimes when they kicked off, you're trying to evaluate the maturity of the technology and all that sort of stuff. So what becomes a lot easier in life is that if you have as much champions as you can for, um, what a smart city can provide and what the, these different technologies can do for you. And a lot of it is essentially around, um, essentially kind of telling people what sort of these technologies are, what are maybe the ethical or the data considerations that you might consider them and how could it benefit them? So, one, ironically, one pilot that we started off with was academy the near future, which was essentially this education program that we wanted to have that would, um, upscale and train city staff and students about what the smart city concept was, what it entailed, what are the considerations and how it could, um, either for students, you know, basically influence their future career decision making or for, for local authority staff, how it could be embedded in their day to day work practices.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:14:49 And that started off, and we did a series of workshops and we kind of gone in from there. And what we've done in the last while is we have focused on, we have focused on, um, transition year students first. So transition year is a year for people in and around the age of 15 to 16 in the Irish, uh, secondary school system. And it's included a number of workshops that have gone into, so it happened, uh, last year and a thousand students, uh, attended these workshops across Ireland. And it was essentially, uh, interactive, uh, intuitive workshops where children were taught were thought about how technology shapes the places they lived in. And it basically improves their, um, ideation, uh, their creativity in terms of this, in terms of these different types of technologies and how they were relevant to them. And, you know, I like, I I've seen some of this stuff from practice and Grace D’Arcy is the person who's led on this to date.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:15:46 And, you know, it's been, it's been absolutely fantastic. You know, it's been, um, it, the amount of work that goes into the development of the workshops and to make sure that they're intuitive and in line with what students, uh, are gonna be able to engage it is, is one thing. But then to put it into like this bigger articulation and have it in line with smart Docklands is a separate entity, is a separate, uh, achievement in and of itself. And, you know, that's basically grown, grown legs, and next year, it's gonna go on it's. So this year it was a, a thousand students, it was a one time visit. So went to schools, did the workshop evaluated it left, but this time it's gonna be, um, schools are gonna be visited three times. And by course of those three times a citizen science project is gonna be set up with them, which is in line with another research project, European research project called I-CHANGE.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:16:41 So it's about basically showing them how they're, it's explaining to them the importance of citizen science and showing how their work can be incorporated in. And it's been absolutely massive. And it's, it's taken on, um, a lot of different things that we had a week long program last year called Design Your Future City, where we brought in, uh, 20 children from the Dublin area. And they came in and they had various talks and workshops of people about technology, how it was, um, relevant to them, what they could, how they could use it. And actually the end of it, then we basically were kind of like trying to say, like, how could we, how could we develop this more? And this is subsequently developed into maybe, uh, creating a link between, uh, businesses and corporates in the area and between potential work that students could be providing.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:17:28 And that's kind of morphed into something that we're finessing at the moment, which is, uh, called Change Makers, which is essentially about articulating, um, having a process between, uh, industry CSR objectives and research opportunities and daily operations that we could have. So there there's a lot of work involved in it, and it, we're, we're very conscious that everything we're trying to do is for the public good and to improve, uh, the life of citizens. And one, one thing that I'd particularly like to highlight about Academy of the Near Future is that the remit that we're trying to focus on is about, uh, communities that are probably underserved from stem. So science, technology, education, maths, from those areas that it's not engineering, maths or other, that it's not a case of, uh, serving people who already have like, um, good stem outreach programs and predominantly then, uh, trying to have like a 60, 40 split between a more female, uh, participation as well.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:18:25 So it's, it's, it's really the goals that have kind of embedded into it have been asked to be fantastic. And we're looking to do that again with our, uh, with the change makers program in a similar vein to make sure that everything is in line and as well with, um, a community, our community engagement, uh, outreach, which is, uh, someone has just started, uh, the not too recent pass. Um, so yeah, really like my kind of goal is that, uh, the, the lesson is really to try to make sure that all these programs, if they're, they're fantastic and ambition, but it's to make sure that they're aligned, that they aren't distinct from each other, that the under the underlying core of them. And the mission that they're trying to do is quite similar with a slightly different, um, uh, engagement audience, if you know what I mean? So you have students, who've corporates, who've community engagements, it's all, we're all looking, trying to do similar things and wherein possible we can join in together.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:19:18 Wow. Yeah. That's, it's amazing. I, I was going to ask you also about the Academy of the Near Future. So I'm really glad that you, you spoke about that. I was like, wow, that sounds very futuristic. And, uh, I, I was very curious to learn more. Um, I'm just wondering also from your experience, so with engagement, um, how have you had to change the method of achieving these goals dependent on the audience? Um, so when you speak to different people, um, to children to, to corporates, like how does that messaging have to change?
Darach Mac Donncha 00:19:54 Yeah, I mean, it it's, it, it can be a very, it has to be go something that's thought about, um, to a massive extent, um, with the corporate side of things, we're finessing that at the moment parallel to that for say, for the focus on students, we're gonna be, um, developing another stream. And another person will coming on board to focus on, uh, upscaling, local authority staff. And essentially saying to them, here are the, uh, the newest level of technologies here, so you can engage with it. And it, it definitely takes, uh, it definitely takes a really unique skill to be able to do that. Cause the way that you like you articulated the way that you talk to a 16 year old, it's very, it can be quite hands off-ish. It can be, make sure that they're, they have the freedom to ideate and that they don't have a lot of adults staring and standing on them.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:20:45 They're not under pressure to perform, particularly if they're not from, they're not used to this kind of environment. Um, versus when you're trying to get in from the local authority staff, it's probably trying to get champions for already existing projects to say, you know, ideally you have someone kind of saying, like I was skeptical initially myself, but here's how it helped my life. And here's how it helped my, um, daily work practices. So it, it, it is massive. And, you know, like unfortunately, or fortunately, fortunately from my perspective, it does take, um, really capable people to come in and do that. And to even be aware that that's gonna be an issue that you're not gonna be able to do the same workshops. And thankfully the Smart Docklands team, um, is really intuitive in that regard. And like, we will sit down and we will essentially do mock workshops with the Smart Docklands team and the Smart Dublin team, just to try and make sure that the messaging and that the, the rollout of these workshops is done ahead of time.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:21:43 So like, it's, it's almost kind of like the overarching message of what it's gonna be is one thing. And the delivery of the workshops is the other thing. And it's, it's trying to Mel them together and to make sure that it is thing. And, and like, we, like, we we'll probably have for the, the corporate side of things. We'll probably, we're looking to have, um, workshops in the, in the near future, I say in the near future way more in life than I never ever did beforehand. <laugh>, but, uh, we're lucky to have them with a couple of trusted partners and, uh, trusted kind of, uh, people that we're aware of that, you know, that, um, here's what we're kind of thinking of. How does it, um, reflect from CSO programs that you might have engaged with previously? How does address maybe some of the inefficiencies that you've come across before in, um, in how you've engaged with them before?
Darach Mac Donncha 00:22:33 So it, it, it is like test and trial and I, I, I don't think there's any shame in kind of saying that, you know, um, things evolve over time and you get better, but the lessons that could have been learned for the, the rollout of the student workshops, there's definitely lessons there that can be learned that can be applied in, um, in the context of corporates or local authorities or ideally with communities. Um, but fortunately from my perspective, it's, uh, it's about the power of personality as well. And, um, I'm kind of, we're very lucky and I, I slash smart doctrines are very lucky that we're, we don't, um, we don't miss out on that.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:23:12 Yeah, very nice. Um, now I just want to give you, we're running a bit out of time, but I could, I could talk to you about engagement, I think for hours. Um, but I want to give you the floor. Maybe you also want to continue talking about engagement, but maybe you want to touch on anything else that you think it's really important for our listeners to know about smart Docklands and the work that you do. Um, so you can take the floor if you'd like it, uh, you don't have to take it, but I give it to you.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:23:41 Oh, I suppose if you give it to me, I might as well take it. <laugh> no, it's, it's basically, um, what, what I've kind of found with kind of Smart Docklands and what, what I think is, was the overarching plan originally, and it's definitely become that way is it's about bringing innovation to life and it's about showing practical implementations of technology. Um, so, uh, high impact, low cost, uh, application of technology, ideally. And I think that what we've, what, what is, what I've started to do a lot is to do innovation towards the Docklands. So to talk about say, um, physical applications of technology that are in the Docklands, but also pointing to a number of projects that we have done in like, so we have a 5g tested. Um, we have a number of, um, uh, low powered sensors networks. We have stuff for rings, stuff that scale up from initially pilots to, um, to business as usual services.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:24:41 And I, I think that it's, you, you don't have to go to, uh, from an Irish perspective, you don't have to go to a Barcelona or an Amsterdam to see this sort of stuff. This stuff is happening in real time. And I think that some of the, uh, some of the best for the best experiences that I've had is been, you know, we've been at conferences and people have said, you know, God, I wasn't aware that city was doing this. It's fantastic that they are, um, how could I get involved? How could we, how could we help out in any way? And, you know, I, I think that that's, that's only gonna increase this time goes on. And I would just say that, like, if you do have any interest in technology in Dublin, or particularly in the Docklands area, like we'd absolutely love to hear from you.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:25:26 And, uh, love to have conversations with you. The team is extremely capable and, uh, quite a widespread in the kind of sense of the thing. And we are more than welcome to, and more than happy to coordinate between, um, ourselves DCC, Dublin city council, and Trinity, and with the connect researchers. So we're trying to, you know, uh, facilitate research opportunities for applied research as much as possible, and obviously the future of telecoms and the future connectivity is a big aspect of that. And only a couple of weeks ago, we had a workshop, uh, Smart Docklands, um, had helped organize it where we had infrastructure providers, academics, local authorities, people involved with telecoms discussing what Dublin needs to do or could do for the future connectivity in the city. And something that I took away from that, that I thought was really, um, indicative of the group that we have and how lucky we are is that some of the main conversations around it is how do we, uh, make sure that connectivity in the city is distributed equitably and that everybody in the city is kind of has equal access, um, to the highest connectivity possible.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:26:34 And, yeah, that's look it's, we are coming like, like a, a amount of stuff and everything from, um, the 5g tested, 3d modelling, uh, open Wi-Fi, uh, mobility solutions regarding to Dublin cycle buddy. There's a whole host of things you could do. And by all means, uh, reach out to, to me personally, or to the info@smartdocklands account and be happy to have a conversation with you. Um, my example later on about the, the breadth of conversations is, uh, is really, really welcomed to be honest and, uh, yeah, looking forward to in the future.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:27:11 Amazing. I really love, um, when cities are so open to having these discussions with external, uh, stakeholders, et cetera, as well. So, um, yeah, so that is amazing. So, uh, I learned so much in the, in the span of, uh, 20 minutes here, but, um, I want to move on to, uh, a short segment of ours and it's one of my favourite segments and it's called roll with the punches. Answer this or that questions quickly and with your first instincts, and we'll just go through it quickly. And at then at the end, you will get the chance to explain your answers if you'd like, um, are you ready? Go for it. Okay. Sounds good. Solar or wind energy,
Darach Mac Donncha 00:28:04 Solar
Darach Mac Donncha 00:28:07 Dunno why. I dunno why I decide solar when, when it, it rains all the time in Ireland. <laugh>, um,
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:28:12 Uh, engagement or education
Darach Mac Donncha 00:28:15 Engagement
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:28:16 Past, or future
Darach Mac Donncha 00:28:18 Future
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:28:18 E-bikes or regular pushbikes,
Darach Mac Donncha 00:28:21 Regular push bikes.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:28:22 <laugh> do you want to, uh, explain any of your answers? <laugh>?
Darach Mac Donncha 00:28:28 Um, I, I, I suppose on the engagement education, one in smart, we would view that like very interlinked mm-hmm <affirmative> in some ways, so that's probably, um, outside of the bikes one <laugh>, um, I, I really have to buy a bike, um, and, and get far better at using it. That's a, that's a, that's a shameful admission on the podcast <laugh> but, um, yeah, the, the engagement and education that is probably, we would view it as quite similar that we would have an engagement process, an engagement, uh, initiative through like Change Makers, our community engagement academy near future at large, um, that it's, it's, it's really a dual focus that it's engagement and education. Yeah. Call it smart education. You can put that now in for it, if you wanna for adjective rather. Um, what was the other ones? Uh, solar wind. I, I mean, the, the, the reason I really went for solar, um, straight off the bat was cause there's over 400 big belly bins in the city and they're all solar powered bins.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:29:26 So they're all solar power beans and they, they have a compactor on top of them. So the compactor kind of basically just compresses the, the waste. So the waste management services and Dublin City Council don't have to be driving around the city as much as possible, so they can have dynamic routing. They can only go for a period of time. But then what we're looking to do as well is to increase, to, to think of an asset, think that anything on the streetscape as a dual asset, so a bin isn't just a bin, a bin could be, um, a receptacle for open wifi. You could mount air quality sensors, nice quality sensors onto it, and you could kind of go at it from there. So that's probably why we went solar, um, the bikes, uh, I just I've, uh, I dunno, I dunno with the bikes, I think like, it's, uh, you burn more calories if you're on a normal bike, maybe. I don't know. <laugh> um,
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:30:20 I don't know.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:30:22 Love e-bike so that's, that's my thing. I live at the top of a hill, so, you know, an e-bike is my best friend, so <laugh>
Darach Mac Donncha 00:30:29 Yeah. And like for probably people have, have spoken about it as well, that, you know, um, there is a smart mobility hub, uh, connected with smart Dublin mm-hmm <affirmative> and it's about like, you know, getting people to, it's essentially a behavioral change project that people will, you know, if they're coming into work, that they won't take their car, that if they need to take journeys at a certain time that they might take, uh, um, an electric bike on an electric car sort of stuff. So I, I'll probably tow the party line and I'll say, electric bike if I was going back and doing that again. But,
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:31:00 Uh, that's okay. It's not meant to be definitive answers. It's just meant to, um, you know, make you say, okay, uh, that's a weird question. <laugh> and that make you choose. So, um, yeah, thanks for playing along. And now I just have one last question for you. And it's a question that we ask every guest. And the question is to you, what is a smart city?
Darach Mac Donncha 00:31:23 Uh, I think, uh, using smart city is the use of tech to improve people's, uh, lives and the lives of citizens in cities. Um, I think that it's, it's probably one of the, it was the main thing when I was looking at smart cities from a research perspective that the, the definition of smart cities was so broad and it was so varied that it almost became, um, a term that lost its currency. Yeah. In the sense that like, it, it probably became a little bit gimmicky in the sense that it could be all things and all matters to all men. Whereas I think that what we're trying to do is, um, what we're trying to do as a program is really kind of demystified mm-hmm <affirmative>. And to essentially say that this isn't, um, it's not, it can be in certain context, but it's not always like a fire in the way futuristic city.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:32:12 This is technology that's happening right now. Yeah. And this is what the, this is what the council is doing. This is the type of research that is happening in Trinity about stuff. And this is not 10, 20 years away. This is, you know, uh, 2, 3, 2 months away, two years away, whatever you're having. And this is, um, yeah, this is it. But, uh, yeah, I, I, I probably wish that it was, the definition was a little bit, uh, clearer, cause I've had to spend a number of years explaining what a smart city is to people <laugh>. So I'm, I'm very acutely, uh, aware.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:32:45 Yeah. That's why we also ask this question, you know, cuz we do get varied responses, but I feel like it does clear it up for people as well, like this image in their head of what it really is. And um, most of the time people answer in different words around what you just said. Um, and that it's a progression, right. Also it's a, it's a spectrum, not, there's not a smart city in a dumb city and there's nothing in between. Um, but really this, this using technology to improve people's lives, it's really at the core. So
Darach Mac Donncha 00:33:15 Yeah. And I, I think that that progression you mentioned is exactly, probably it chimes in 100% of what I said earlier about the longer that smart docs has gone on. It has been more of a, an emphasis has come up on the training and the thing cause people are literally, they have different perceptions of what a smart city is and what maybe your perception of it is or what your definition of it is. So like that has just probably come, you know, hand in glove with the fact that it is this kind of, um, slightly opaque thing that, um, uh, is yeah, nobody wants to be a dumb city. So yeah. Yeah. I think that we all have to be kind of smart city.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:33:55 Yeah, absolutely. Uh, with that, I will leave it on that note. Um, and I want to say a huge thank you to you Darach. Uh, thank you for coming on. And I'm very much looking forward to hearing so much and seeing all the things that are happening in smart doc lens and in Dublin as well. Of course. So, yeah. Thank you so much.
Darach Mac Donncha 00:34:15 Thanks man, for having me appreciate it.
Tamlyn Shimizu 00:34:17 And to all of our listeners, don't forget, you can always create a free account on bable-smartcities.eu to find out more about smart city projects, solutions, implementations, and more. So thank you all. Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
