National Digital Twin movie and app target COP26 audiences

The film stars Paul Copley (Last Tango in Halifax, Downton Abbey), Sam Bottomley (Ladhood, Wolf Hall), the voice of Sam Spruell (Snow White and the Huntsman), and Hopi Grace (Time, Emmerdale) as Clara, the digital twin engineer. It has been produced by Crocodile Media in partnership with Little Monk Pictures. A trailer for the film is available to watch from noon today (26 October). The film will premiere during COP26 and will be available to stream online from 2 November on the Digital Twin Hub. 

The interactive app, developed by the NDTp together with Esri UK and in partnership with Mott MacDonald, introduces the fictional Sunford City. The city experiences a series of severe storms, driven by climate change, that cause a cascade of emergencies across the city and hamper the ability of utility networks to recover.

Users can test different scenarios by using isolated digital twins versus connected digital twins to see how this enables them to make decisions to better protect the city. This demonstrates how connecting datasets and digital twins across organisations and sectors through the National Digital Twin is vital to future infrastructure resilience and is on the critical path to net zero. 

Sarah Hayes, the project’s lead and author of the report Data for the Public Good, said: “Following the recent statement by the Environment Agency that ‘It is adapt or die’ when it comes to climate-driven flooding, CReDo’s outputs could not be more timely. We want the film and app to connect with everyone, from asset owners to the public, and remind them that lives are at stake.

“We need to build more resilience into our systems, and that takes collaboration. As Clara, the engineer in the film, says, ‘We have the technology, we just need to share the data.’”

Speaking about the interactive app, Esri CTO Charles Kennelly said: “Esri UK is proud to be working with the CReDo project to highlight the essential role of connected digital twins in understanding and mitigating the climate crisis. Geospatial technology is foundational for linking disparate digital twins, helping understanding of climate data and enabling organisations to collaborate on complex projects. We believe that the film and demonstrator will have a significant impact on delegates at COP26.”