Sunderland has won Digital Leaders UK's Smart City of the Year 2020 award.
Gaining recognition on a national scale as the UK’s fastest growing smart city with this eagerly awaited appearance in the DL100’s top spot, illustrates the advanced smart agenda and digital achievements from across Sunderland over the past year.
Outcomes and successes of the Smart City’s implementation to date, include:
Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHaP) launched a chatbot service titled Virtual Doctor for COVID-19. People can use the service to assess whether their symptoms could be associated with the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
Mrüna’s low-cost, rapid tech solution aims to tackle the economic and social challenges of wastewater treatment with its decentralised nature-based system, BiomWeb.
Using IoT, the solution treats wastewater on-site, negating the need to transport waste and recycled water, with a series of water tanks that imitate aquatic habitats found in nature, without the use of added chemicals, desludging, or vast infrastructure investment.
Mrüna anticipates that BiomWeb will be adopted by refugee camps and informal settlements, as well as private and public sectors across the world.
CertainSafe is highly effective cloud-based encryption software which attempts to mitigate all aspects of risk and is compliant with industry regulations.
With the platform, you can store and share documents, private messages, photos, videos and other files without exposing them to third-party sources. You can even collaborate and communicate with colleagues through the system, with all correspondence encrypted.
CertainSafe also adds automated security for business databases and applications, meaning you don’t always have to do things manually.
YubiKey is a security key, enabling strong two-factor and passwordless authentication. With a simple touch, the multi-protocol YubiKey protects access to computers, networks, and online services. The YubiKey works with Windows and Mac login, Gmail, Dropbox, Facebook, Salesforce, Duo, and many more services, what's more there is a special YubiKey avalaible for phones.
The Authy app generates secure 2 step verification tokens on the users' devices. It helps to protect their accounts from hackers and hijackers by adding an additional layer of security. Authy encrypts the users' 2FA data and backup to their cloud, without storing passwords. It also works offline, avoids SMS and voice security issues by generating 2FA tokens directly on the device.
Last Pass is easy to use, as it has a simplified interface. It is packed with features and offers both free and premium tiers, so users can choose the option that suits them best.
It offers a handy extra feature - the ability to log in to apps on phone too, which very few password managers offer.
1Password is a privacy-focused password manager that keeps users safe online.
With this tool, all users need to do is memorize one password and rest all the other passwords, and the master password protects the important information and keeps it confidential.
1Password keeps all the logins and private documents secured. It records usernames and passwords when users sign in to apps and websites, and keeps your data a hundred percent safe.
At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the new situation put all companies in difficulty, but as the weeks passed, telecommuting support platforms made work more and more seamless and the benefits of such solutions became apparent.
Slack is an easy-to-use messaging service and integrates with popular services such as Twitter and Dropbox. Conversations or channels are organised by topic of which you can have as many as you like. The design is slick and simple, and you can share any file type (including photos and videos) with colleagues in a fraction of the time it would take to email them. It also has video call functionality for up to 15 participants, for those days when you need to see your fellow workers’ faces.