Building prototypes for collaboration between London Boroughs on Internet of Things in a week

Using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to deliver public services has been explored for a number of years. Several London Boroughs have installed IoT to support parking and delivery of social care. But integrating these technologies sustainably into day-to-day public service delivery and on a wider scale still feels out of reach. The London Office for Technology and Innovation brought together representatives from London Boroughs for a 5 day sprint in early March 2020 to explore the barriers to further adoption of IoT in the public sector and to prototype responses which could support greater collaboration. Emerging Field provided the facilitation for the week.

The London Office for Technology and Innovation is a recently launched collaboration between the Greater London Authority, London Councils and 15 London Boroughs. It was created to help London boroughs work together, bringing the best of digital, technology and data to improve public services for Londoners. They had been working with a number of London Boroughs on the issues around IoT implementation and had decided to bring partners together in an IoT Week to focus activity and effort.

Ed helped the LOTI team to design each day’s activities and lead the facilitation through the design sprint. Based on a Google Design Sprint methodology, he tailored each day’s activities to the needs of the topic. Over the week 3 teams emerged prototyping solutions that tackled various challenges identified. The week culminated with presentations to representatives from London local government.

Facilitation
Design Thinking