ODX participated in civic accelerator showcase at 68th IPAC National Annual Conference
June 28, Toronto, ON— Canada’s Open Data Exchange (ODX) participated in a showcase session called “Civic Accelerators Driving Government Innovation” at the 68th IPAC National Annual Conference in Toronto on Tuesday.
The showcase discussed how civic or city accelerators can enable startups and entrepreneurs to co-create civic tech solutions for challenges municipalities face.
Kevin Tuer, managing director of ODX, joined Andy Best, Open Government Manager, City of Guelph, and Beatrice Couture, General Manager, InnoCité MTL, to discuss civic centres driving innovation in Canada.
Specifically, they discussed the collective experience designing and launching the Civic Solutions Accelerator and Challenge, launched June 20, 2016.
The civic accelerator and challenge were created to disrupt the procurement process—to reduce the barriers for innovative solutions created by startups and medium-sized businesses to be adopted to solve civic problems.
Tuer spoke specifically to the role of open data in the initiative
“Open data can be used to define and quantify the problem. Open data are the vital signs of a smart city,” said Tuer, explaining that open data can be used to formulate solutions to the problem and net new open data can be created from the process.
He also spoke to the lessons learned so far.
“Municipalities need to treat civic innovation with a sense of urgency, given the rapid pace of change being driven by data and technology,” Tuer said, adding that municipalities can learn from each other to build their own civic tech strategy.
“They shouldn’t underestimate the time it will take to build consensus within the municipality or the effort required to build a strong value proposition to be able to effectively engage solution developers – the startups and medium-sized businesses,” he said.
“Don’t look at this as a threat—look at it as also an opportunity. Start small and start now.”
