The City of Edmonton: A municipal leader in digital technology

A series of strategic initiatives are underway to enable City departments to provide services to citizens through use of technology.

Edmonton is one of four cities in Canada that have made city-managed data available online in accessible formats for the benefit of all Edmontonians. Earlier this year, the City's Open Data Catalogue was posted on the website and reaction so far indicates local IT developers are engaged and involved.

The City of Edmonton is opening its doors to local software developers to improve the way information is made available to residents, and banking on market competition to spur innovation, lower costs and provide greater sustainability for the way information is processed.

In late June, the City announced an Apps4Edmonton competition contest, with $50,000 in prizes and winners showcased at GTEC2010 in Ottawa in October 2010.

Earlier this year, the City launched Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (LTEL) to encourage local IT developers to propose and develop applications that offer solutions for delivering better government services. For example one Edmonton-based company is developing a better system for connecting with residents who may have lost items on the City's light rapid transit and bus systems.

Following are some other digital projects the City is working on:

• The City of Edmonton is partnering with other municipalities, including the City of San Francisco, to agree on a common platform from which developers can create applications to send information to 311 call centres. The Open 311 effort means that an application developed for one city anywhere in the world could be used in other cities that have adopted the same platform.
• The City of Edmonton is also pursuing the development of a Code for Canada organization, which builds on similar work that is currently underway in the U.S.A. Code for Canada will help city governments become more transparent, connected and efficient by connecting the talents of innovative web developers with city departments to enable the transformative power of the web to achieve more impact with less money. Code for Canada will work with city officials and leading web development talent to identify and develop web solutions that can be shared and implemented in multiple cities.
• The City of Edmonton is planning to launch an iPhone application called CityWatch, developed by local company Touchmetric. CityWatch will allow Edmontonians to report problems to 311 using an iPhone application. The message to 311 will include location information and pictures from the iPhone's GPS and camera.