Smart Cities Challenge

The first round of the Smart Cities Challenge is closed. The Government of Canada announced the four winners (City of Montréal, Québec; Nunavut Communities, Nunavut; City of Guelph and County of Wellington, Ontario; and Town of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia) on May 14, 2019.

The Smart Cities Challenge is a pan-Canadian competition open to all municipalities, local or regional governments, and Indigenous communities (First Nations, Métis and Inuit). The Challenge empowers communities to adopt a smart cities approach to improve the lives of their residents through innovation, data and connected technology.

Through the Smart Cities Challenge, we hope to:

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Realize outcomes for residents

Because the Smart Cities Challenge is all about achieving outcomes, it will be vital for communities to measure where they are starting from, when they are making progress, and when they have achieved success. Establishing a baseline and measuring results will be central to doing this.

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Empower communities to innovate

Communities should take risks and think big, identify significant, pressing, and perceived "un-solvable" problems, and achieve outcomes through data and connected technology.

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Forge new partnerships and networks

Communities will need to undertake meaningful engagement with residents and forge relationships with new and non-traditional partners.

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Spread the benefit to all Canadians

Smart cities approaches should not only benefit a single community; they should be scalable and replicable across Canada.

Community Solutions Network

As the project lead, Evergreen is working with OpenNorth and other partners to provide valuable information, learning opportunities, advisory and capacity building services to Canadian communities. Key areas of focus include smart technologies, data ownership, data management, privacy and security.

Communities across Canada are exploring how innovation, data and connected technology can solve their most persistent problems. The Smart Cities Challenge is encouraging communities to engage residents and implement bold and innovative ideas. The Community Solutions Network supports communities to advance their thinking on the use of smart cities approaches to help improve the lives of their residents.

Click here to find out how the Community Solutions Network can help you!