Tag: cities

Ookla partners with Dublin City Council to tackle telecoms deficits in the city

Today, Ookla, a global leader in connectivity intelligence, announces its partnership with Dublin City Council and the City Telecoms Association to identify and tackle telecoms deficits in Dublin. This first-of-its-kind initiative, fueled by Ookla’s Speedtest Insights®, offers a practical blueprint for l cities across Europe to drive digital inclusion and optimise network outcomes through actionable, data-driven insights.
The partnership demonstrates how a data-driven approach can enhance connectivity outcomes in a tangible way, empowering cities to better serve citizens. For the first time, the city is addressing connectivity gaps through targeted policy interventions, and fostering collaborative efforts with operators to attract investments that were previously hindered by site acquisition challenges.
You can find the full partnership case study here with more information about the five high-impact use cases created by Dublin City Council using Ookla’s network intelligence data.
Key points from the study:
  • Telecoms strategy and digital inclusion:  A proactive data-driven telecom strategy aimed at bridging digital divides, with significant analysis of how socio-economic factors affect connectivity outcomes, especially in areas with high social deprivation.
  • Identification of connectivity gaps: Ookla’s real-world data has enabled DCC to pinpoint key areas in Dublin with significant connectivity issues, influencing policy and planning to prioritise interventions where they are most needed.
  • Innovative use of city assets: Dublin’s approach to leveraging city-owned assets for telecom infrastructure, including facilitating multi-operator site access, represents a strategic move to optimise asset use and reduce urban clutter, aligned with EU regulatory goals​.
  • Transparency and public engagement: The Council has launched a public educational initiative on telecom infrastructure, including visualisations of before-and-after network improvements from new site deployments, to engage citizens and increase acceptance of new infrastructure.
  • Comparative benchmarking in Europe: Through Ookla’s data, Dublin has gained insights into its telecom performance relative to other European cities, highlighting areas of competitive strength in 5G availability and identifying room for improvement in 4G speeds​.
Key data and methodology:
  • The collaboration saw Ookla collect Speedtest® network data across the city over two 12-month periods (June 2022-June 2023 and June 2023-June 2024) with a sample size in the tens of millions; creating the most comprehensive analysis of mobile network performance ever conducted at the city level in Ireland.
  • Leveraging Ookla’s Speedtest® Insights platform, DCC were able to integrate other data sources, such as internal city asset registries, mobile site location maps from Ireland’s telecoms regulator ComReg, and social deprivation data from Pobal.
  • Geospatial analysis created a localised tile-based grid across the entire city to categorise mobile network performance at different times of the day. Performance was evaluated against two metrics; signal strength and download speed. Each location tile was categorised as unacceptable if it had less than 11 dBm signal strength and 5 Mbps download speed. Anything above 11 dBM and 5 Mbps was categorised as ‘acceptable’.

Bolt and Snapchat reimagine cities without parked cars in new AR collaboration

Global mobility company Bolt has partnered with Snapchat to create a new Lens that gives every person the power to reimagine their city by visualising urban spaces with fewer parked cars in real time using augmented reality (AR).

The new Lens, which is called P.E.O.P.L.E. (Parked Environment Optimisation for Public Land Enhancement), recognises parked cars and turns them into environments built for people, such as outdoor cafés, cycling lanes and green spaces, and is available to millions of Snapchatters worldwide. It’s the world’s first augmented reality lens that detects cars and replaces them with people-friendly places with a single tap.

The Lens forms part of Bolt’s newest pan-European brand campaign “Feels Like Home”, which encourages people to aspire towards better urban environments with less congestion by highlighting how cities should feel like an extension of your living room, rather than a space for cars.

As the urban populations grow and cities are battling with rising transport emissions and congestion, shared mobility – including shared taxis, bikes and scooters – can help people switch away from using private cars by increasing connectivity to public transport and catering to people’s different mobility needs. Bolt offers taxis on demand in Dublin and Cork, and shared electric bike rental in Sligo, Kilkenny, Wexford, and Bray.

Research from the Tallinn-based firm revealed that only one-quarter of Irish drivers believe they are likely to give up their car in the next five years. Over half (54.55%) of the 1000 drivers that responded cited the overall expense of running a car as a potential reason for giving it up, whilst 52.35% mentioned rising fuel costs as a motivating factor.

A recent consumer survey from McKinsey found that nearly 50% of people are willing to swap private cars for different transport in the next decade, and almost 30% aim to use micromobility or shared mobility more in the coming decade. Bolt’s research also confirms that 63% of people believe shared mobility (ride-hailing, e-scooters, e-bikes, and car sharing) decreases the necessity for owning private cars.

Liisa Ennuste, a creative strategist at Bolt, said: “For decades, cities have prioritised cars over pedestrians, bikes and scooters. This is reflected in the space distribution in cities where more than 60% of urban areas are reserved for cars instead of pedestrians and infrastructure for more environmentally friendly modes of transport.

“Many cities have realised that and are moving away from a car-first mindset by building cycling roads, supporting micromobility, and turning parking spaces into small parklets. Our collaboration with Snapchat is a reminder of how cities can be improved by creating more spaces for people, not cars.”

Poli Dor, Head of Central & Eastern Europe Business Solutions at Snap, commented: “We’re really excited about our work with Bolt, not least because this project helps us to showcase AR’s ability to imagine and promote a more sustainable way of living. We have over 397 million daily active users on Snapchat, so to bring this type of creativity to our platform can have a massive impact, and can help educate people to make more informed lifestyle decisions, like how they get around their city.”

In addition to the Snapchat app, the Feels Like Home campaign will be activated across many other channels, including social media and OOH.

Feels Like Home is the latest Bolt campaign which highlights the potential for cities to be improved if more urban space was devoted to people and infrastructure for shared mobility options like ride-hailing, e-scooters and e-bikes, which reduce the need for owning a private car. Bolt’s suite of products offers viable alternatives to private car ownership: ride-hailing seeks to replace the need for owning a private car, while e-scooters and e-bikes are perfect for shorter journeys, and Bolt Drive can be used for longer journeys where ride-hailing is not suitable.

In past campaigns like Cities For People, Not Cars, Bolt has highlighted how urban environments have been transformed, showcasing historic photos of European landmarks filled with cars and newer photos from the same locations showing fewer cars and more space for people

New Dell research ranks Dublin amongst top 25 cities globally on ability to foster women entrepreneurship

A new study from Dell Technologies unveiled today has ranked Dublin as 23rd out of 55 cities globally for its ability to attract and foster women entrepreneurs.

 The 2023 Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index ranks cities across the world based on their ability to attract high potential women entrepreneurs (HPWE) who want to do more, scale faster and thrive.

This year’s Index shows positive, forward progress for Dublin since Dell first launched the research in 2016. While it ranked 23rd in the Index overall this year, Dublin also demonstrated consistent progress as it registered the 3rd highest momentum score. The city climbed 11 positions since 2017, when it ranked 34th.

Dublin also excelled in the list of the most advanced cities for women entrepreneurs in the technology sector, ranking 7th. The research specifically highlighted the city’s advantage in the access to a qualified and diverse workforce and its central role as a major global hub for cybersecurity.

Dublin ranks 8th out of the 55 cities in gender equality in leadership in the tech industry and 12th for its access to mentors and role models for women.

Commenting on the research, Ciara Dempsey, Regional Sales Senior Manager at Dell Technologies Ireland, said: “The Dell WE Cities report is a key piece of research that not only highlights the importance of creating an environment where women entrepreneurs can thrive but also how collectively we can empower a greater number of female leaders to create and grow their business here in Ireland.

“While there’s still much progress to be made, it’s fantastic to see Dublin recognised as an emerging hub for talented women entrepreneurs, especially in the technology industry. By further investing in high potential women entrepreneurs and equipping policymakers with data-driven insights, we can foster an ecosystem where business leaders and entrepreneurs can grow regardless of gender.”

 Building on the annual research, the survey by Dell serves as a tool to advise policymakers on how to better support women in business, and profiles global centers of commerce by their overall suitability for women entrepreneurs.

WE Cities Ranking and Methodology

The 55 cities included in the Dell WE Cities 2023 were ranked on five important characteristics: capital, technology, talent, culture and markets. These pillars were organized into two groups — operating environment and enabling environment. The overall rating is based on 72 indicators; 45 of these (nearly two-thirds) have a gender-based component. Individual indicators were weighted based on four criteria: relevance, quality of underlying data, uniqueness in the index and gender component.

Dell WE Cities 2023 Ranking – Overall

  1. London
  2. New York
  3. Bay Area
  4. Paris
  5. Stockholm
  6. Chicago
  7. Los Angeles
  8. Toronto
  9. Sydney
  10. Boston
  11. Washington DC
  12. Melbourne
  13. Seattle
  14. Wellington
  15. Berlin
  16. Amsterdam
  17. Copenhagen
  18. Auckland
  19. Vancouver
  20. Atlanta
  21. Portland
  22. Singapore
  23. Dublin
  24. Austin
  25. Miami
  26. Barcelona
  27. Minneapolis
  28. Taipei
  29. Hong Kong
  30. Beijing
  31. Houston
  32. Warsaw
  33. Pittsburgh
  34. Belfast
  35. Shanghai
  36. Munich
  37. Tel Aviv
  38. Milan
  39. Kuala Lumpur
  40. Dubai
  41. Seoul
  42. Johannesburg
  43. Nairobi
  44. Hamburg
  45. Tokyo
  46. Bangalore
  47. Montpellier
  48. Mumbai
  49. Delhi
  50. Istanbul
  51. Sao Paulo
  52. Lima
  53. Mexico City
  54. Jakarta
  55. Guadalajara

Dell WE Cities 2023 Ranking – Technology Pillar

  1. Copenhagen
  2. Beijing
  3. Stockholm
  4. Shanghai
  5. Wellington
  6. Singapore
  7. Dublin
  8. Auckland
  9. Montpellier
  10. Warsaw

To read the full study, visit: https://dwen.com/en-us/we-cities-2023/