CROSS-CANADA Roundtables to Focus on Small, Rural, Indigenous Communities

ICF CANADA and Canadian Urban Institute are collaborating to develop 6 Roundtables across Canada from May – October, 2019 in partnership with Evergreen, to focus on discussions with small, rural and indigenous communities about their interests in being or becoming a “Smart Community”. The initial roundtables will be by invitation only to be held on Wednesday, May 22 with Windsor Essex in collaboration with Connecting Windsor-Essex and on May 29 in Olds, Alberta in collaboration with the Olds Institute for Community &Regional Development.

Canadian Urban Institute and ICF Canada will be representing the Canadian Smart Cities Network initiative of Infrastructure Canada in parallel with its Smart Cities Challenge program across Canada. The focus of the roundtable gatherings are to identify local issues and opportunities as they relate to their smart community aspirations and to raise awareness about:

• the impact of, and opportunities related to, technology, data and privacy related issues, etc;
• opportunities for knowledge sharing;
• opportunities for the creation of accessible pan-Canadian smart community networks; and
• accessing existing networks for productive connections between stakeholders and communities, among other topics, that these communities may feel are the most important to discuss and explore.

In addition to Ontario and Prairies Roundtables, additional small and rural community roundtables are being planned for Quebec, Newfoundland (Maritimes). Two indigenous-focused roundtables are also being planned for British Columbia and in the Northern Territories. Look for announcements here.