Meet Fredericton, one of Canada’s 2022 SMART21 Cities
Fredericton is the capital of the province of New Brunswick and is recognized as an exceptional center for post-secondary education. It was recognized by ICF as a Smart21 community in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2020, 2021, and most recently in 2022. It also achieved Top7 recognition by ICF in 2008 and 2009. Fredericton boasts an economic development strategy aimed at building an economy based on its unique human and economic assets. Initiated as a strategy called Vision 2000, and often updated, it included city officials, university leaders, the Chamber of Commerce, real estate developers, the region’s telecom firms, the hydro-electric utility, and representatives of the software community which helped to transform the community to focus on the “knowledge sector”.
Fredericton’s universities play a major role in Fredericton’s economy and culture. The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is Canada’s oldest English-language university and the first to create a computer science faculty and offers forest engineering programs. Saint Thomas University is Canada’s only university focusing exclusively on teaching the liberal arts. The Maritime College of Forestry Technology is a business-government co-op that supports excellence in the management of one of Canada’s most important natural resources. UNB partnered with the city to develop the Knowledge Park, offering office space for knowledge-based businesses and much more. Knowledge Park emphasizes quality of life beyond the office and research lab space by including wooded areas, walking trails, a hotel, and daycare and pre-school facilities onsite. Software investors have had an especially important impact on the city’s evolution focusing on knowledge sector businesses in technology and services such as e-learning, aerospace training, health, network security, and multimedia games.
To demonstrate Fredericton’s focus on knowledge-based industries, the city offers a free wireless network called The Zone across most of the city and free Internet via the GoFred Network. The city also benefits from its access to SpaceX’s Starlink service. Setting a national trend put Fredericton on the map as a big player in the IT world.
Fredericton benefits from its skilled professionals; seasoned executives and top-notch engineers. Many come through Fredericton’s post-secondary institutions. UNB is home to one of the country’s longest-running co-op programs. More than 75% of R&D in NB comes from UNB. Its Innovation District now hosts more than 60 R&D organizations. Knowledge Park is a partnership with the Canadian Research Park Network (AURP). In addition, UNB has more than 50 research chairs and institutes. Also, Planet Hatch is a leader for Fredericton’s “ Start-Up Capital” award. Ignite Fredericton is the lead economic development agency, steward of the city’s Vision 2020, and has many more competitive advantages to offer as a knowledge center.
Fredericton’s innovation preeminence was launched when it became the first 5G Network in Atlantic Canada in 2020. Rogers Communications partnered with Ignite Fredericton to provide 5G to its Innovation Lab at the Cyber Centre in Knowledge Park, which is run by CyberNB. It introduced BOOST — a smart city innovation event to fully develop 5G use cases into prototype ideas. This collaborative, week-long Innovation Camp offered a unique opportunity for participants to help devise innovative solutions to address real ‘Smart City’ municipal challenges. Using real-life data along with 5G technology, participants spent the week hacking with an interdisciplinary team to create innovative solutions to real-world problems. Participants benefited from learning through guidance from expert coaches, esteemed mentors, and feedback from customers allowing each interdisciplinary team to create a working prototype of their innovative solution
From an inclusion perspective, Fredericton demonstrated as a finalist of the Smart Cities Challenge four core projects 1- Digital Fredericton 2-Connected Communities; 3-Fred E-Hack; and 4-Smart Cities Digital Fredericton: (http://www.fredericton.ca/en/smartfredericton/digital-fredericton). Digital Fredericton is the City’s 5-year strategic transformation journey to become a more flexible, efficient, responsive, and transparent government that works with community partners and focuses on what matters most to residents to improve their quality of life. Connected Community is a program focused on innovative solutions from startups and other stakeholders (http://www.fredericton.ca/en/smart-fredericton/connected-community) including the Open Data Portal. The Fred-eZone integrates traditional and wireless technologies, a free, community-wide Wi-Fi network providing residents, visitors, and businesses with mobile broadband access from virtually anywhere within the city. Fred-eFibre Service Dark fibre (also known as customer managed fibre) is a product that is exclusive to the Fredericton region. Dark fibre allows customers to light and manage their own dedicated fibre strand(s) with electronics supplied by the customer. With GoFred Dark Fibre, customers can access city-wide ultra-secure, ultra-fast and 100% dedicated fibre optics offered on an annual rental basis or on a long-term IRU (irrevocable right of use) lease. Fred E-Hack (http://www.fredericton.ca/en/smart-fredericton/fred-ehack ). is a boutique-style, 12-hour hackathon designed to solicit ideas on potential use cases or minimum viable products using the City of Fredericton’s IoT sensor network. The City partnered with eleven-x to deploy Internet of Things (IoT) sensors that enable real-time information and data collection from things previously impossible to monitor. For example, the occupancy and utilization of wheelchair-accessible parking throughout the city; real-time flood monitoring and water level data; parking occupancy status using real-time connected sensors; quality of life applications for air and noise pollution; water consumption sensors at three arenas; field moisture sensors to monitor the condition of sporting fields; and occupancy counters to measure laps during an event. The Smart Cities Challenge resulted in the creation of the Civic Innovation group within the municipal government. Its booster program, Idea Hopper, is an Innovation event accessing the municipality’s open data. These not only provide efficiencies and greater collaboration within the Greater Fredericton region but also foster innovation within the business community. See https://www.fredericton.ca/en/boostfredericton .
As part of its engagement strategy, Imagine Fredericton was initiated in 2016 to help strategize ways to manage Fredericton’s growth. Its stable economy, strong institutions, and high quality of life expect to continue to attract people from elsewhere in Canada and many parts of the world. By 2041, the city’s population is projected to increase by more than 50% from 60,000 in 2016 to over 90,000, and the number of jobs is expected to increase by 12,000 in the same period. To ensure this growth is planned wisely, the City initiated “Imagine Fredericton” to engage residents in a conversation about the city’s future. In order to plan this growth wisely, the City launched Imagine Fredericton, a multifaceted initiative that engaged the community in determining where and how residential and employment growth should be accommodated over the next 25 years. The innovative consultation process included open houses, a three-day City Summit, one-on-one conversations, an “Imagination Station,” and a variety of online tools. An understanding of how Fredericton has grown to date, its existing assets, and the key challenges and opportunities it faces informed a community-wide discussion on the city’s future. The vision that emerged was translated into nine community goals, which provide a foundation for both the Growth Strategy and the new Municipal Plan to follow. The strategy was awarded silver status at IEDC. See: https://engagefredericton.ca/.
From a sustainability perspective, Fredericton was selected to join the first Showcase Cities cohort led by the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM) Canada. Fredericton’s aim is to reduce its community’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate change by setting new goals and targets that build on the 34% reduction in GHG emissions seen over the past 15 years and the 20% reduction in emissions over the past two decades.
For more information on Fredericton contact Sarah Corey Hollohan at sarah.coreyhollohan@ignitefredericton.com.
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