In 2016, Bristol Is Open was recognised on the global stage, winning the Smart City Innovator Award at TM Forum’s Digital Transformation World and the World Communication Award for "Smart Cities". In 2017, The Times newspaper declared Bristol the UK’s smartest city, a distinction echoed by Huawei in its UK Smart Cities Index. In 2018, Bristol Is Open won the Judges' Choice Smart City Award at GSMA’s Mobile World Congress GLOMO Awards. The initiative attracted international attention, with global media coverage and city leaders worldwide emulating its model of innovation and collaboration.
What made it so groundbreaking? Bristol Is Open was a joint venture between the University of Bristol and Bristol City Council, designed to turn the city into a living laboratory for innovation. It deployed a pioneering software defined network across the city, with 90 miles of fibre in ducts under the streets, an experimental 5G network in the harbour, and a citywide IoT mesh network embedded on streetlights. Using the University of Bristol’s enormous supercomputer for advanced data processing and the city’s planetarium for immersive data visualisation, the initiative combined cutting-edge research with real-world urban application.
It connected key innovation assets in the city, including the Engine Shed business incubator; the Watershed creative industries hub; and Knowle West Media Centre, in an area of considerable deprivation. It opened the network up to start-ups and global companies, creating an open platform for experimentation at city scale. This rare combination of deep-tech capability, visionary urban leadership, and a city scale testbed created something truly unique: a smart city programme that not only delivered results locally, but set a benchmark globally.