On Thursday the 1^st June we launched the next phase of Our MK, focussing on supporting projects crowdfund finance and support through our spaceHive page. We were also promoting a crowfunding workshop for people interested in learning about crowdfunding and how they can make the most of Our MK, the new crowdfunding platform in Milton Keynes.

During the event, around 80 attendees found out about the four projects we are currently helping to support:

The MK Community Fridge is two fridges and one freezer located in the foyer of The Old Bath House and Community Centre, Stratford Road, Wolverton and available to access from Saturday 1 July. The fridges will enable residents and businesses to share surplus food and for anyone to help themselves to quality food that would otherwise be wasted. They are seeking £1,639.

Camphill MK Communities is looking to crowdfund the purchase of two essential, potentially life-saving defibrillators for the community of people with learning disabilities based at Camphill as well as the many visitors to the site. They are seeking £2,982. 

The Learning Tree is a holistic and therapeutic outdoor learning project based on the Urb Farm in Wolverton. They would like the children of Milton Keynes to be able to experience a different view of life by building a traditional tipi in the woodland at the farm. Not only will this provide a sheltered outdoor classroom it will offer children the chance to experience how many people across the world live – not separate from nature but in harmony with it. They are seeking £4,456.

The Patch Allotments at Woughton on the Green are a green haven for the residents of Milton Keynes. People can experience peace and quiet on the site with their own piece of land to grow your own food and socialise with other tenants. They have recently been affected by thefts at the allotments and are trying to raise funds to purchase equipment to replace the stolen items. They are seeking £2,213.

The event also helped us celebrate many of the projects that have taken place through Our MK over the last two years, finding out about the amazing work they’ve been doing to support change in local communities across Milton Keynes. More information on these fantastic projects can be found on our website.

We are delighted to have won the communications prize at the Smart Cities UK 2017 awards.

In addition to demonstrating the value of the Our MK initiative, this award highlights the success that individual Our MK projects have created – we are very proud of the work done by all of the projects.

The MK:Smart project also collected awards for CAPE (in the housing category) and the data hub (in the data category)

We are delighted to announce that we have teamed up with the Open University to deliver a pilot project in Milton Keynes that will focus on recruiting and training community members to become volunteer Energy Champions in their neighbourhoods and communities.

We will be actively promoting the project in the next few weeks and updating you about its further plans.

This Half Term families in Milton Keynes are being encouraged to get on the Redways to explore Campbell park and combine using their smart phones with the great outdoors for some family Halloween fun!

Download the ‘Mobile Adventures’ app and complete the game by exploring Campbell Park to find the spooky characters. As you find each Halloween themed character your phone will set your family team challenges and quizzes to gain you points and unlock the location. The top 3 family teams with the highest point’s tallies after half term will receive £100 each in high street vouchers.

Funded through Our MK and MK Public Health in conjunction with the MK Physical Activity Alliance, the game has been coordinated by Leap – the Sport and Activity Partnership for Bucks & MK.

Chris Gregory, Senior Development Manager at Leap, commented:

“For any families who were hit or even missed the Pokemon craze, this is the next best thing. Combining family time and outdoor activity by using the fantastic network of Redways to explore Campbell park.

“Perfect for families with children in school years 3 to 6, its also a great way to have some Halloween fun as a family.”

On 13th October we hosted a bustling networking event at the Gallery 200 at MK College. The event saw people from across MK coming together to understand how to be involved in making Milton Keynes a ‘Smart City’ and apply to the final round of the Our MK competition.

The Community Acton:MK Volunteer Awards celebrate the work done by volunteers in Milton Keynes. The awards offer a chance to give volunteers the recognition they deserve for their hard work and commitment, to say a small thank you for their big contribution.

On the 5th October 2016, 94 people attended the volunteer awards, co-hosted with the CA:MK AGM. We are really pleased that two of the Our MK project leaders won awards at the ceremony:

• Diversity Award Winner – Padma Cheriyan (RNIB and Our MK)
• Innovation Award Winner – Michael Sheppard (Transition MK and Our MK)

Additionally, two Our MK project leaders (Ros McFadden and Ziyenge Nhamburo) were also nominated for the Innovation Award.

The first Community Raspberry Pi pilot workshop ran on Wednesday 17^th August. Hosted at the UCMK campus on Avebury Boulevard, seven attendees learnt about how to construct a Raspberry Pi computer before using Scratch to learn some basic coding skills.

All of the participants enjoyed the sessions and wanted to attend the series of workshops currently being planned which will extend their knowledge of what it is possible to do with the Raspberry Pi and how it might contribute to greener computing.

Attendees enjoyed the “hands on experience” and praised the informative and friendly facilitators. Several attendees suggested that they would enjoy a longer workshop as the extra time would really help them get into the details of what it would be possible to do with the Raspberry Pi.

While we are pleased with the progress of each of the Our MK projects, we have noticed that there had been little interaction between the various volunteers.

As such, on 8th July we bought these innovative citizens together for a collaboration lunch at University Campus Milton Keynes. The lunch gave project leaders a chance to share their projects and to understand about other ideas being supported through Our MK. The event sparked discussions about how the projects were going and enabled people to explore new opportunities. We also heard from citizen innovators about the benefits of Our MK. They said:

• “It helped me to think clearly through ideas I am working on, which helps to make it real”. Ziyenge, Raspberry Pi Project
• “The most useful thing about Our MK funding is being given a platform to build on and continued use of resources”. Lyndsey, Digital Upcycling Shop Project
• “The exchange of ideas has been more interesting and useful than advice”. Padma, Navigation Beacons Project

Our MK is now looking to use the lessons learned from Our MK to develop this project further, giving people the opportunity to lead on future city solutions and projects.

MK has one of the best cycle route systems in the country but it is significantly under utilised. The use of the system is discouraged by problems such as poor lighting, overhanging vegetation, poor cycle priority at junctions, poor surfacing, glass on the surface and poor signage.

The project is based around developing a phone app which can be used to quickly and easily record and report problems with the Redway system. The app will be map based to allow issues to be located and photographs and comments to be attached to provide more information on a particular problem. The results of this reporting system would be immediately available to the Council and Parks Trust to take appropriate action. This action might relate to short term maintenance issues such as cutting back vegetation or longer terms issues which would improve the overall Redway network.

We are very excited that the Centre MK Beacon system has become the seventh winner of the Our MK funding competition.

The plan is to explore the potential for using bluetooth beacons, installed across Centre MK, to help people with visual impairments navigate inside buildings within the city centre.

A free to download app provided by the Centre MK Management would hopefully be compatible with all smart phones and could aid navigation via beacons on all retail outlets in the Centre. The beacons on retail outlets would provide some information on the shops one goes past as well as inform the retailer about the footfall in their shops – a useful marketing tool for retailers.

We are delighted to report that a scheme to record videos on the major Redway routes has become the sixth winner of the Our MK funding competition.

People do not use the Redway network as much as they should partly because the current Redway map is out of date, they do not know the conditions of the Redways throughout any proposed route and they do not know what routes are possible.

By filming the major Redway routes, and releasing the videos as open source, the project hopes to both promote cycling on the Redways and stimulate novel applications using the resulting videos.

Community Action: MK is helping to organise an energy-focused event with Transition MK and Wolverton Community Energy on the 19th April – at Acorn House on Midsummer Boulevard. 

The event will include:

• Networking opportunities 
• An update and Q&As with Wolverton Community Energy
• Short films about existing renewable energy projects in the UK
• Discussion on ‘switching to greener energy suppliers’

Tea, coffee, and cake will be provided!

We are very excited that the Community Computing Literacy scheme has become the fifth winner of the Our MK funding competition.

Focussing on the Raspberry Pi platform, the scheme is planning on running a series of workshops across Milton Keynes to help teach parents basic computer literacy skills. In doing so, parents will be better prepared to help their children who now have to study computing as part of the national curriculum.

In addition to developing the teaching materials for the workshops, the project also involves surveying local schools about their computing provision and developing two demonstrator systems, highlighting the potential for sustainably-powered computers.

We are delighted to report that the Breastfeeding Hub App has become the fourth winner of the Our MK funding competition.

The project is focussed on creating an app to promote the use of breastfeeding within Milton Keynes. Alongside detailed resources about why you should breastfeed, how to breastfeed, how to express and Frequently Asked Questions, the app will also contain details of who can help in the local area.

The most innovative part of the app will be a map detailing the best locations in Milton Keynes to breastfeed. Alongside expert reviews, we hope the app will contain the ability for users to leave their own comments about the location as a place to breastfeed.

On 5th February we hosted a bustling networking event at the Gallery 200 at MK College. With 84 attendees, the event saw people from across MK coming together to understand how to be involved in making Milton Keynes a ‘Smart City’.

In addition to discussing the Our MK scheme, Franzi Florack from MK Food Revolution shared her experiences of running her own project with support from Our MK. MP for Milton Keynes North, Mark Lancaster, also spoke at the event saying that ‘what is fantastic about Milton Keynes is that underpinning all of [our] shiny, modern image are these key local passionate projects which are the drivers and the foundations as to how we are going to move forward‘.

The event also announced the winners of the MK:Smart Photography Competition, where photographs entered represented the brief ‘What is your ‘Smart City’?’. The Judge’s Winner was Simon Beckett with his image named ‘The Future is Solar!‘ and the Online winner, judged by more than 1,300 votes was Paul Bond with his photo called ‘Take action, think smart, one future, our future….‘ that received 532 votes. And finally the event winner was James Rayner with the Photo ‘Cedar Barn Passivhaus‘.

We are very excited to report that All Small Things have just been announced as the third winner of the Our MK funding competition.

The project is focussed on around promoting the sale and use of recycled and upcycled furniture. Reusing old furniture brings many sustainability benefits, particularly with regards of consuming raw materials. Using an electric van, a pop-up shop will be visiting a variety of locations within Milton Keynes to promote the sale of recycled furniture.

The pop-up shop will also be gathering data from the people that visit the shop, giving us unique social insights into communities within the city.

We are delighted to invite all citizens in the city to vote for which photo you think best illustrates Milton Keynes as a ‘smart city’.

Winners of the online vote will be announced at our exhibition and networking event at Gallery 200 at MK College.

Join us for MK FEAST, MK’s first and most exciting celebration of local food, artisan products and community groups!

Based at the wonderful Bradwell Abbey, the MK FEAST will bring together your favourite food vendors, market stalls and entertainment. Bring your passport to collect stamp rewards and connect with other foodies. Support MK’s local makers and creators!

We are delighted to invite all citizens in the city to enter this competition, which is all about portraying a photographer’s take on Milton Keynes as a ‘smart city’.

Whether you are an aspiring photographer, or simply enjoy taking pictures, or just have a camera lying around, this competition is for you!

We are very excited to report that MK Food Revolution has just been announced as the second winner of the first round of Our MK funding competition.

The project is focussed on the ‘Milton Keynes Indie Food Passport’, a brochure type passport, which includes descriptions and addresses of local food outlets (including directions and opening times) as well as general information on the Milton Keynes independent food scene. The passport will have a space where local food outlets could ‘stamp’ their own logo when a customer visits their stall/shop. The passport could also act as a ‘discount booklet’, offering holders 10% off (or similar).

On the 23rd September we ran a launch event at the Transport Systems Catapult to inform members of the public about the Our MK scheme, what funding we have available and how they can get involved. 

The event featured presentations from the key people behind the MK:Smart project, including members of the Citizens Engagement team at Community Action: MK and The Open University, who explained the concept of and the core objectives behind the smart cities initiative. The real highlight of the presentation was a talk from Michael Sheppard – MK citizen, teacher and a keen activist involved in a number of local initiatives, including Transition MK and the MK’s Green Party.

We were delighted to see over 50 MK citizens and representatives of local organisations, groups and businesses, keen to find out more about this local initiative. Many of them shared their ideas with us at the event – by leaving comments at our ‘inspiration station’ and expressed their eagerness to be part in running or helping to run local projects. We were particularly pleased that members of the local press including One MK and Business MK attended the event and have helped us spread the word. 

We are very excited to report that Michael Sheppard has just been announced as the first winner of the first round of Our MK funding competition.

Michael’s idea is about promoting an extremely low-cost system for off-grid solar lighting. Such a system is about promoting and fostering a sense of independence and resilience and at the same time hopefully encouraging a more judicious and respectful attitude to domestic electricity consumption.

The Our MK team took the newly launched website to various events and activities taking place last week.

On Monday 22nd of June we showcased the project and the platform at the Engage MK networking event at Bradwell Abbey, which focused on the effective use of social media to drive community-based groups and projects.

On Friday 26th of June we visited the weekly coffee morning at Moorlands Centre in Benhill, a hugely popular local community activity. We talked to residents there about the new website and updated them on the progress of the MK Smart project, following our visit earlier this year. As always in Beanhill, we received lots of useful feedback and suggestions, and two local residents have successfully created their profiles on OurMK, and uploaded their own ideas on the site – one of them on how to improve the water distribution in the city.

We look forward to seeing your great ideas, which will help to shift people’s approach to the local environment and, ultimately, turn Milton Keynes into a truly sustainable smart city.