October has been a big month for ODX partner, City of Guelph. On Oct. 6, Accelerator companies Alert Labs and Milieu demonstrated their work in progress to media, City staff, and the general public.
About the Guelph Civic Accelerator
The Guelph Civic Accelerator is a pilot innovation challenge and accelerator program that enables the City to engage in open innovation with entrepreneurs, startups, students and companies to create solutions for complex municipal problems. It shows how companies can work with government to solve problems using open data.
An innovation challenge invites companies to propose solutions to a well-defined problem with market potential. In this case, city staff worked with ODX, Innovation Guelph, and the Guelph Lab to identify and scope specific, important problems and evaluate applicants in a systematic way.
Finalists are embedded at City Hall for four months, provided with mentorship and support, and given the opportunity to win a contract with the City.
The City sees the Accelerator as a way to engage city staff in new, better approaches to their work improving customer and workplace satisfaction. Managers and staff gain a deeper understanding of the problems they face, as well as new, potential solutions that they might not have found otherwise. The City also gains early access to technology that will improve the lives of residents, create jobs, and growth.
Alert Labs and the Water Challenge
Alert Labs Inc. is a software, hardware, and IoT technology firm in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Its affordable basement monitoring solutions connect directly to the cellular network, are easy to install by anyone in under two minutes, require no WiFi, and give real-time and historical info on water consumption, leaks, floods, temperature, and more. Alert Labs' products tell property managers, landlords, and homeowners what's going on in their basements even when they're not there, so they can avoid damage and save money, time, and natural resources.
GuelphToday.com reported that "details were unveiled by Kitchener-based Alert Labs president George Tsintzouras about a very capable little orange box that straps on to a conventional water meter and provides water-use data, cellphone and email alerts, and more to homeowners.
If there is a spike in water usage, especially at a time when there shouldn’t be one, the homeowner will know and be able to respond quickly. It also detects near-frozen pipes.
Instead of getting your water use information once every month or every three months the conventional way, the Alert Labs tech provides it right now."
Widespread deployment of Alert Labs sensors could result in a significant reduction of water consumption in Guelph households. This could allow the city to delay or avoid expensive upgrades to its water distribution system.
Milieu and Civic Engagement
Milieu is a web and mobile application that enables citizens to stay informed and connected to what's being built in their city. Municipalities and developers can launch consultations more effectively and collect public sentiment to facilitate evidence based decision making in city planning.
In the same article, GuelphToday.com reported that "Company co-founder and president Luisa Ji said public participation informs and improves the planning decisions that are made at the local government level, and fosters trust and accountability.
What’s needed to solve current planning and citizen engagement problems, Ji said, is a better system of getting the message out to more people. The current approach is far too complicated and not very user-friendly, fraught with 'inconvenient participation methods' that lead to 'citizens distrusting local government,' she added."
With the lowest unemployment rate in Canada, and easy access to the rest of the Greater Toronto Area and the northeastern United States, the City of Guelph is poised for significant growth. A solution like Milieu could help deliver better planning outcomes, and a happier, healthier city as it grows.
The Next Open Data Challenge
Given the success to date of the Guelph CSA, we are now seeking out other municipalities, governments, companies or organizations who would like to run their own Open Data-powered innovation challenges in 2017. If this may be of interest to you, please contact us.
