UK Future Cities Mission seeks opportunities in SZ

Writer: Chen Xiaochun  | Editor: Stephanie Yang  | From:  | Updated: 2018-11-29

Future Cities Mission take a group photo with all the guests at Weyoung in the Shenzhen Bay Software Industrial Base on Nov. 27.  Photos by courtesy of China-Britain Business Council.


TEN British urban innovation companies organized by Innovate U.K. for its Future Cities Mission attended the Future Cities Mission to China — U.K.-China Business Match-Making Event & Networking Reception in the Shenzhen Bay Software Industrial Base on Tuesday, where they discussed cooperation with some 80 firms from the Pearl River Delta region.

“Why do we focus on cities? A few years ago, more than 50 percent of the people lived in cities around the world. In the U.K. it’s about 83 percent, and in China the number is 56 percent. One of the reasons why the U.K. is so urbanized is that it has been urbanizing for a very long time. Manchester was the world’s first global industrial city,” said James Taplin, innovation lead for urban living with Innovate U.K.

A U.K. company representative gives a pitch at Weyoung in the Shenzhen Bay Software Industrial Base on Nov. 27.  


Taplin said cities are facing increasing challenges, not only in population growth but also resource shortages, climate change and traffic jams, which are common around the world.

Yang Haojun, co-founder and CEO of WeYoung, a local international maker space, explained that WeYoung is an incubator that helps small and micro startup companies connect with big companies so that the resources of these companies can help them.

AppyParking is a curbside management platform that helps smart cities better manage and monetize their road network to unlock the potential of connected autonomous vehicles.


Participants at the Future Cities Mission to China — U.K.-China Business Match-Making Event & Networking Reception held at Weyoung in the Shenzhen Bay Software Industrial Base on Nov. 27.


“We want to stop the pain of parking in the city. Thirty percent of our congestion is caused by people looking for parking spaces. When it comes to parking, drivers are literally lost and this has a few costs, including billing in the payment, billing in parking fines and others,” said Kieran Fitsall, regional director of AppyParking.

“In AppyParking, what we do is map the cities to make it easier for drivers to find parking spaces and pay for parking,” he said.

Fredi Nonyelu is the chief executive of Briteyellow Ltd., a company that provides 3-D indoor positioning, navigation, and tracking cloud-based solutions that are on the cutting edge, cost-effective and adapted to the environment.

“GPS drives many of the amazing services we rely on today. But it doesn’t work accurately inside buildings. Many building operators are in the dark about how people are using their spaces, and users cannot enjoy the amazing location services they enjoy outside. As we move to the new age of virtual and augmented reality, just think of the incredible new customer experience that is possible,” said Nonyelu, telling the audience that they are looking for partners, investors and opportunities for RIoT.

Innovation Qianhai-The Belt and Road International Roadshow Centre at Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneur Hub on the afternoon of Nov. 28.


The mission held a roadshow at Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneur Hub yesterday.

The visitors also paid a trip to China State Construction, Huawei and Ping An International Smart City Technologies Inc., and will visit China Academy of Urban Planning & Design Shenzhen today.

Innovate U.K. is part of U.K. Research and Innovation, a nondepartmental public body funded by a grant-in-aid from the British Government.

It brought 10 U.K. companies to visit Guangdong from Monday to Friday, expecting to grab business opportunities in smart transport, affordable health care, sustainable urban environment, urban planning and technical infrastructure.