‘Healthy City’ announced as Edmonton’s $50 million Smart Cities Challenge theme
February 20, 2018

Infrastructure Canada’s Smart Cities Challenge was launched last fall. Since then, people from all orders of governments, post-secondary institutions, startup communities and the tech industry have come together along with individual Edmontonians to narrow the field of ideas to work toward Edmonton’s pitch.

The first stage of their work was to focus on a theme, which Mayor Iveson announced today.

Through all the discussions a few themes stood out: population health, social inclusion and economic development. “We further distilled those ideas down to the unifying idea of Healthy City,” Mayor Iveson explained. “This theme includes not only physical and mental health but also the social and economic health of Edmontonians.”

The way cities are designed and how services are delivered have a direct impact on the population’s health. The Healthy City theme has the potential to address challenges such as reducing the incidence of disease, increasing social inclusion or reducing homelessness or related issues.

Now the work begins for Edmontonians to come up with award-winning projects that will improve the health of our community. “Edmontonians are problem solvers. People are sharing great ideas in their schools, at work and on the LRT on the way home. We want to hear those ideas,” the Mayor said. “There are more than enough ideas out there to build an Edmonton where every member of our community has equal opportunity to live their best, longest, happiest and most productive life.” 

Edmontonians can submit their Healthy City project ideas to Edmonton’s Smart Cities Challenge website. Edmonton’s Smart Cities Challenge website not only outlines Edmonton’s approach but provides a portal for Smart Cities related websites across Canada.

“Of course we would love to win a $50 million investment for our community, but this effort is bigger than that,” Mayor Iveson explained. “We are going to hear a lot of great ideas over the next couple of months, more than we will need for our final submission. Some of those ideas may take root with startups or governments. This kind of conversation is vital to a city. We need to bring diverse perspectives and experiences together and build new solutions together.” 

Proposals are due to Infrastructure Canada on April 24. They will be evaluated for the overall theme and community engagement activities. Finalists will be invited to further refine their submissions, which will be due next winter, with the final prizes awarded in the spring of 2019.
For more information:

Media contact:  

For Mayor Iveson
Media Relations Manager
780-496-8104
780-789-7762

For Open City and Technology
Communications Manager
780-496-2929
780-554-3763