London, ON – Civic innovation makes it possible for municipalities to keep pace with the changing expectations of today’s tech-savvy citizens. That is the message of a article published today by Public Sector Digest and co-authored by ODX Managing Director Kevin Tuer and City of Guelph Open Government Manager Andy Best. ODX is supporting the City of Guelph’s Civic Solutions Accelerator, a “pilot project that ‘hacks the RFP process’ by sharing three complex municipal problems and challenging entrepreneurs, startups and SMEs to develop solutions while embedded within City departments.”
“The firms gain extraordinary access to target markets, municipal networks, a potential first client, and the data sets that enable innovators to understand the problem, design prototypes and for proof-of-concept. On the City side, this allows departments to ensure that solutions are built – not bought – to solve complex municipal problems. It enables them to experiment with and prototype solutions before locking in to a significant capital investment. This brings the City closer to new kinds of innovative solutions required to address complicated challenges.”
ODX is supporting this initiative because building these innovative solutions will create new sources of open data. Successful solutions will be great case studies that demonstrate the value of open data to government, to citizens, and to the companies that build the commercial solutions.
Both ODX and the City of Guelph hope that the Civic Solutions Accelerator will serve as a model for similar programs run by governments, non-profits, and even for-profit companies across Canada.
Learn more at open.guelph.ca/accelerator, or read the full article at Public Sector Digest.
