Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced the 20 finalists selected for the Canada Smart Cities Challenges. Chris Teale reports that the 20 finalists were selected from a list of 130 applicants.
In November 2017, the Government of Canada challenged communities across the country to develop bold and ambitious ideas to improve the lives of their residents using data and connected technology.
Over 200 communities, large and small, from across Canada submitted their innovative ideas to the Smart Cities Challenge. An independent panel of 13 jury members evaluated these submissions based on the criteria set out in the Applicant Guide.
Twenty finalists have been selected to go on to the next step of the Challenge. Each finalist community will receive a $250,000 grant to help it develop its final proposal.
The website for the Smart Cities Challenge has more details on the kinds of proposals the competition will seek to reward. "A smart cities approach means achieving meaningful outcomes for residents through the use of data and connected technology. This approach can be adopted by any community, big or small," according to the website. The website also includes an interactive map for perusing the proposals of the finalist cities.