*Special Episode* The CityVerve project is about connecting people – and things. So, naturally, we were delighted to bring representatives of some of the UK’s leading smart city projects together for what we’re calling CityChat, a smart cities roundtable from CityVerve. Joining our host, David Altabev – who you might recognise from a previous episode of CityCast – were three smart cities experts from Milton Keynes, Manchester, and Southend-on-Sea. As expected, the discussion was wide-ranging and yielded some interesting results. Over the course of the afternoon, five main themes emerged: citizen engagement; data; the examples set by smart cities abroad; funding; and, as you’d expect from a group who like to keep an eye on the future, how things are set to change in the coming years…