SMART LEADERSHIP:
KITCHENER’ S FIRST DIGITAL STRATEGY
Digital Kitchener offers an exciting example of what‘ smart’ cities can achieve
By Justin Watkins
The concept of smart cities or smart communities is something we hear a lot about these days, but the idea has been around for some time. Observers in Canada tend to identify tools such as public Wi-Fi, open data and other smart-branded products as common hallmarks of such communities.
Within each of these there are many examples across Canada where inspirational change is happening. On their own, however, public Wi-Fi, open data and the like are simply tools, and do little to build the kind of resiliency expected from a smart community. That’ s why in Kitchener we are rethinking what“ smart” means through our new digital strategy, Digital Kitchener.
Digital Kitchener began as a request from city council in 2014 to explore what a new smart city strategy might look like. Interestingly, through this process our community of stakeholders pushed us to think less about the tools we could use and to think more about why being smart was important. We learned that Digital Kitchener needed to inspire a higher level of thinking about the community we wanted to be— it needed to be about smart leadership.
Digital Kitchener is a vision that weaves together the great aspirations our residents and staff have talked so passionately about. It is a vision to use information and tech as a means, not an end, and to unlock potential within our municipal organization
14 Q2 2017 www. amcto. com and our community. It defines what“ smart” means to Kitchener by becoming more connected, innovative, on demand and inclusive.
We believe that by connecting our infrastructure, we can become a more competitive, productive and attractive place to live and work. We believe that when we think and speak about Digital Kitchener, that this is where it starts.
Our focus in building a more connected community revolves around two actions. First, it’ s about doing all we can to ensure Kitchener is an easy-to-access, low-risk market for new investment in fibre and wireless networks. Second, it’ s about exploring new tech opportunities as part of all major infrastructure builds.
We believe that by inspiring a community of innovators we can continue to drive change that has a meaningful impact. We believe that our community’ s innovative nature is what makes Kitchener beyond ordinary.
As a community, Kitchener is fortunate to have some of the best and brightest thinkers. As a municipality, we want to leverage these great minds to tackle our civic challenges and improve municipal services. We recognize that becoming more innovative occurs through our culture and processes, not via one particular project.
We believe that by improving access to tools like open data and online services, Kitchener can leverage the on-demand experience to increase engagement and productivity. We believe that the power of information creates endless possibilities.
In only two years Kitchener has come a long way in its approach to data availability. The approval of the city’ s Open Government Action Plan and the adoption of Open by Default for routine disclosure are accomplishments of which we are all proud. On the service side, we continue to explore new ways to offer choice to residents through digital channels, including the launch of a new tax and utility e-billing service in 2017 to 83,000 customers. Despite these successes, we recognize there is still more to do.
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We believe that by improving digital literacy and access, Kitchener can be a community where no citizen, young or old, is left behind.