We have another March under our belts and it’s beginning to feel like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. With warmer weather on the horizon, lockdown restrictions easing and more jabs being had, there is a palpable sense of hope in the city. Today, we’re looking back on the past month here at DG Cities, taking stock of the conversations, events and public engagement activities that are fuelling us with the excitement (and hope) we need as we wait for the world to open up again.

March has been chock-full of fascinating discussions, including with Passive Energy and Swedish company NODA about building upon existing work from Sharing Cities on smart energy and low temperature heating systems. We also had the chance to participate in a workshop with a number of urban stakeholders to discuss opportunities to improve air quality. A cleaner city is a better city, and we’re excited to be able to contribute to these discussions. 

Community engagement continues to be going full steam ahead here at DG Cities. Our Head of Research & Service Design, Ed, has been hard at work developing the strategy for deep community engagement. He also met with the Greenwich Community Champions - a group of over 50 local volunteers and community leaders - to discuss digital inclusion. Do you live in Greenwich and want to chime in to the conversation? Just drop us a line info@dgcities.com. And speaking of input - if you’d like to have your say on autonomous vehicles and how such a service might fit within our future cities, why not fill in our short survey?

The cherry on top of what was already an eventful month was the chance to highlight our work on Endeavour. Along with all of our project colleagues, we participated in two showcases to share the work and findings of the project with both Innovate UK and local authority stakeholders. It was great to have so much interest and attendance from Greenwich, Birmingham and Oxfordshire County Council Officers and Members, and we look forward to keeping them updated on the progress of the project as we move into the final 6 months

Other recent highlights:

• Ever wondered about the environmental impact of Netflix? We’ve been reading the details released this month about Netflix’s carbon footprint. It’s a good reminder of the need for all companies to evaluate their emissions and subsequent impact on the climate.

• We’ve started analysing several datasets - one for project d-RISK which explores perceptions of autonomous vehicles and the second looking at digital inclusion in Greenwich. 

• We’re arranging a DG Cities virtual cheese tasting with the Courtyard Dairy!

This is only a handful of the things we’re working on at the moment – stay tuned for blog posts coming up to find out more.