Winding down the second day of Big Data Toronto, Stewart Bond of IDC Canada interviewed Michael Kolm, newly-appointed Chief Transformation Officer at the city of Toronto, on the Smart City initiative. This initiative is in part about using “smart” technology – by which he appears to mean well-designed, consumer-facing applications – as well as good mobile infrastructure to support an ecosystem of startup and other small businesses for creating new technology solutions. He gave an example from the city’s transportation department, where historical data is used to analyze traffic patterns, allowing for optimization of traffic flow and predictive modeling for future traffic needs due to new development. This includes input in projects such as the King Street Pilot Study that is going into effect later this year, that will restrict private vehicle traffic on a stretch of King in order to optimize streetcar and pedestrian flows. In general, the city has no plan to monetize data, but prefer to use city-owned data (which is, of course, owned by the public) to foster growth through Open Data initiatives.
There were some questions about how the city will deal with autonomous vehicles, short-term (e.g., AirBnB) rentals and other areas where advancing technology is colliding with public policies. Kolm also spoke about how the city needs to work with the startup/small business community for bringing innovation into municipal government services, and also how our extensive network of public libraries are an untapped potential channel for civic engagement. For more on digital transformation in the city of Toronto, check out my posts on the TechnicityTO conference from a few months back.
I was going to follow this session with the one on intelligent buildings and connected communities by someone from Tridel, which likely would have made an interesting complement to this presentation, but unfortunately the speaker had to cancel at the last minute. That gives me a free hour to crouch in a hallway by an electrical outlet to charge my phone. 