Edmonton to launch iPhone application

The City of Edmonton is opening its doors to software developers to improve the way information is made available to residents, and banking on market competition to spur innovation, lower costs and provide greater sustainability for the way it is processed.

“The City is committed to supporting the software development community,” said Chris Moore, the City of Edmonton's chief information officer. “At the same time the City is being recognized internationally for working with other municipalities to establish standards so that everyone can benefit from the solutions to the challenges we all face, from wherever they might be developed.”

Among the coming initiatives:
- The City of Edmonton is partnering with other municipalities, including the City of San Francisco, to agree on a common platform from which developers can create applications to send information to 311 call centres. The Open 311 effort means that an application developed for one city anywhere in the world could be used in other cities that have adopted the same platform.
- In late March the City will announce an Apps4Edmonton contest, with $50,000 in prizes and winners showcased at GTEC2010 in Ottawa in October 2010.
- The City of Edmonton is planning to launch an iPhone application called CityWatch, developed by local company Touchmetric. CityWatch will allow Edmontonians to report problems to 311 using an iPhone application. The message to 311 will include location information and pictures from the iPhone's GPS and camera.

The City of Edmonton is also pursuing the development of a Code for Canada organization, which builds on similar work that is currently underway in the U.S.A. Code for Canada will help city governments become more transparent, connected and efficient by connecting the talents of innovative web developers with city departments to enable the transformative power of the web to achieve more impact with less money. Code for Canada will work with city officials and leading web development talent to identify and develop web solutions that can be shared and implemented in multiple cities.

In the last four months, the City has hosted several “Open” workshops and introduced an Open Data Catalogue, as part of its efforts to improve openness, accessibility and transparency.

“These types of efforts are also a much more effective way to develop and deliver information to residents than we might be able to undertake on our own,” added Moore. “We’re leveraging the power of the community to help our city operate more efficiently.”

City of Edmonton
www.edmonton.ca

iPhone
www.apple.com/ca/iphone/