TECHNOLOGY like Milton Keynes in the UK , or the 100 cities identified by India for ICT upgrading , there is competition to define and achieve best practice . However Mississauga has not rested on its early laurels – Slack thrives on learning from other leaders and great Smart City initiatives so that the best of this can be considered for adoption to enable City Services . “ We don ’ t want to be known simply as a Smart City but rather a great City with a great vision that enables a connected and engaged community , a Smart City .”
The IT Master Plan approved in October 2015 has an overall vision of creating a connected community . However it avoided over specification . “ We had a high level of engagement both with the stakeholders and the vendor community ,” says Slack . “ We reached out to the vendor community and spent time with them to find out what they think the future holds
“ A big part of our IT strategy was to be shovel ready for big funding announcements ”
– Shawn Slack , Director Information Technology and CIO
from a technology perspective , what are the best practices being used now , then tell us what might work for the public sector .”
This was a new approach , and the major technology companies that were approached were enthusiastic . These included Apple , SAP , Bell Canada , Cisco Systems , LinkedIn , Google , Microsoft , OnX and others . The partners really got engaged , sending their people to ride in a Fire Truck or visit the Libraries and Parks , yielding a number of mini projects to leverage technology in small effective ways without much investment . Cisco for example became deeply involved in a plan to roll out district WiFi . “ Mississauga is made up of many smaller districts linked by a corridor where small businesses and tourism have collected . We are undertaking plans in that corridor to build a WiFi district throughout it . It will include free public WiFi and at the
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