Ottawa – Building the Smart City

The need for many diverse public and private sector organizations to collaborate and realize Smart City Ottawa opportunities means that Hydro Ottawa should begin to embrace community collaboration on a dramatically different scale.

As part of Ottawa’s desire to move forward as a Smart City, on April 29, 2016, Invest Ottawa, the City of Ottawa and Hydro Ottawa hosted a “Building the Smart City” workshop to develop a Smart City Playbook. The Playbook describes the long-term strategies, short-term tactics, concrete plays and “quick start” projects from which to move forward and realize the benefits of Smart City Ottawa.

Organizers for the workshop were representatives of Invest Ottawa, the City of Ottawa, Hydro Ottawa and the consultant, Sandel & Associates and its affiliates. The workshop had the primary objective of developing greater visibility and understanding of the Smart City socio-economic opportunity for the City of Ottawa and the business case for Hydro Ottawa. Smart City focus group areas included: Digital Inclusion/Digital Literacy, Education, Energy, Water, Waste Management, Entrepreneurship, Government Services, Civic Tech, Citizen Engagement, Healthcare, High-Tech Business Development, Public Safety, Real Estate Development, Transportation and Mobility.

The workshop had several objectives:

1. Reach understanding of what being a Smart City means and a consensus of what it can mean for the City of Ottawa and Hydro Ottawa.

2. Explore how to go about reaching Ottawa’s Smart City goals, including the roles of various elements for Hydro Ottawa, the City of Ottawa, and the public and private sectors.

3. Identify potential “quick start” projects, plays and long-term strategies for Hydro Ottawa and the City of Ottawa to begin developing plans and metrics to achieve.

Several general themes and areas of community opportunity came out of the workshop for Hydro Ottawa to consider were: Inclusive access to ultra-high-speed Internet connectivity and digital technologies, new forms of community engagement, neighborhood pilots and “quick start” projects.

Fore more information about this project, please feel free to reach out to us at CONTACT FORM.