The cities of Vancouver and Surrey, in Canada, are partnering together to submit a joint application for the Infrastructure Canada Smart Cities Challenge, a nationwide competition encouraging cities to share their best ideas to improve the lives of their residents through innovation, data and connected technology, and they have chosen CitizenLab to help them gather citizens input on these matters.
Over the coming months, both cities are seeking input from citizens, entrepreneurs, innovators and businesses with a final proposal to be submitted to Infrastructure Canada. As the two largest cities in British Columbia, a winning submission for Vancouver and Surrey has the potential to affect transformational change for the cities, and the region, by establishing and accelerating a common smart cities approach to improve residents’ quality of life and competitiveness of businesses. Both cities have led pioneering digital and smart city efforts that have already realized positive results, contributing to our communities being healthier, more inclusive and livable.
The two cities are asking their citizens how they want to see technology and innovation leveraged to better serve the needs of our residents and businesses, how we create efficiencies to better our quality of life, now and in the future is at the heart of being a smart city. Whether you are an innovative business with a detailed project idea or a citizen who has an idea that uses technology to improve economic, social or environmental outcomes, they want to hear from you.
For more information about the Smart Cities Challenge and to submit your smart idea, visit smartertogether.ca. #SmarterTogether
Submissions should align with any one of the following focus areas:
- economic opportunity
- empowerment and inclusion
- environmental quality
- healthy living and recreation
- mobility
- safety and security
The Infrastructure Canada Smart Cities Challenge seeks to catalyze individual efforts and bring together diverse perspectives from community leaders and city builders, governments, corporations, entrepreneurs and academic innovators to achieve a real and positive impact to common issues.
