The UK has ambitious targets for achieving sustainability and reducing emissions by 57% by 2030, and in the era of big data and connectivity, smart cities that operate reliably, responsibly and intelligently will be key to achieving these targets. Meanwhile, the so-called ‘Energy Trilemma’ (providing affordable, resilient and clean energy) has been identified as a critical issue by the Research Council UK (RCUK), and dealing with resilience and connectedness issues is among its strategic priorities.
Running for 8 weeks, from March to May 2022, i-City (sponsored by MathWorks) invites post-graduate students from diverse disciplines to work in teams and find new ways to deploy AI and Machine Learning tools to solve challenges in the following three broad pillars of focus:

Connected Mobility
Smart Electric Vehicle Charging
Energy Efficiency and Sustainability
The Programme

The programme will offer a blend of in-person and online workshops, with tools for innovation, generation and development of ideas as well as technical training on AI and Machine Learning, culminating in pitching each team’s solutions.

Who can participate?

The competition is open to students of all disciplines from Reuben College and post-graduates from the MPLS Division at the University of Oxford. No previous experience of working with AI and ML is required – diversity of teams is key, and the competition welcomes students with backgrounds in economics, sustainability, ethics and business as well as engineering and computer science students.

Why join in?

Build skills in innovation, technology, presenting, pitching and more
Enhance your employability – gain valuable transferable skills that will help you in your future career
Tackle real-world challenges – and have fun doing it!
Prizes will be awarded to each winning participant – full details to be announced
To find out more, come along to the i-City Summit, hosted at Reuben College on Tuesday March 15th 2022 (HT 9th Week), from 10am to 5pm. Sign up to attend the i-City Summit (SSO required).

Key dates

i-City summit and team forming: March 15th 2022 (HT Week 9)
Innovation core training programme starts: March 22nd 2022 (HT Week 10)
Final workshop and pitching event: May 24th 2022 (TT Week 5)
Winners announcement and prizegiving: June 16th 2022 (TT Week 8)

The teams will pitch their solutions at a final workshop event in May in front of a panel of judges drawn from academia and industry. Winners will be announced and prizes awarded at a special ‘Dinner with the Dinosaurs’ event held at the Oxford Museum of Natural History in June.