and so this is Christmas (nearly)…..

Dave Carter — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:58:09 +0000

Here’s to a Green (and Digital) Christmas! Things are finally beginning to get a little less hectic and we’re starting to plan some great things for 2010. In the meantime the Tech Team have put together a great little time lapse video piece of the view from the Town Hall tower across St. Peters Square and Princess Street which our colleagues at Marketing Manchester picked up on in their Visit Manchester blog (check it out!). We’re still getting lots of interest from the launch of the Green Digital Charter at the Eurocities AGM in Stockholm at the end of November, see the Press Release, under the title “Europe’s big cities go ’smart and green’” in the Press Room of the Eurocities web site. Plus the best stuff is yet to come in terms of our plans for becoming the best connected fibre and wireless city in the UK and our modest objectives of halving the price for next generation access (NGA) business broadband connectivity as soon as possible. 2Mbs for all? More like 2Gbs for all, why limit our ambitions? We’ll be saying a lot more in the new year, starting with the NW Insider Breakfast event on Jan. 15th, more details on the events page of the NW Insider website. I’ll be back next week with more examples of seasonal cheer but until then……

Green Digital Charter starts to take shape

Dave Carter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:32:09 +0000

I’m currently in Malmo at the Eurocities Environment Forum where, amongst a wide range of discussions on cities tackling climate change, we are discussing how the digital agenda needs to go green. These discussions are bringing together city decision makers from a very wide range of interests, including environment, energy, regeneration, planning, engineering and ICT. We are looking at ways that, as well as being part of the problem, ICT could also be an innovative and dynamic part of the solution. On the one hand ICT/digital technologies are responsible for about the same amount of emissions as the airline industry (estimated at about 2%), but on the other hand these same technologies could be used to help us not only to reduce total emissions but also to make many of the things we do more energy efficient. So how? Firstly, we need to get our own houses in order and ensure that the ICT we do use is as green as possible, so looking at things like intelligent thin clients, virtualisation and greener data centres is a good start. Secondly, we need to find innovative ways of using ICT to monitor and reduce energy use, such as ‘real’ smart meters, ones which are really accessible and usable by energy users rather than just being used to help energy suppliers reduce their costs and workforces. Thirdly we need to start thinking of ways of linking this in with social networking so that users can start coming up with good content and applications for themselves, perhaps an on-line energy saving co-op or smart metering mash-ups for starters. So, over the next few months we’ll be working with other cities in Eurocities to come up with new ideas and then we are aiming to bring all this together in a “Green Digital Charter” which we’ll be launching at the Eurocities AGM in Stockholm in November. More on the Eurocities website and, of course, on the MDDA website.

Manchester Digital Development Agency » green digital

and so this is Christmas (nearly)…..

Green Digital Charter starts to take shape