The City of Ottawa is one of a dozen leading Ottawa institutions involved in SmartCapital, a program designed to make Ottawa the “most wired city in Canada.” Managed by the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI), SmartCapital is partially funded by Industry Canada through its Smart Communities Program.

A total of $13 million is being invested in SmartCapital projects in Ottawa. The City of Ottawa’s SmartCapital project is valued at $2.6 million over three years, including a $1.6-million investment from the City of Ottawa in financial and in-kind support, and $1 million in matching funding from Industry Canada.

SmartCapital is designed to drive the development and adoption of advanced online services. A three-year program, SmartCapital is nearing the end of its initial funding phase, with the current round of projects to be completed by Sept. 30, 2003.

The City of Ottawa’s SmartCapital project has a number of significant subprojects within it, including the development of a Youth Channel for the City website, ongoing support of “edemocracy” activities related to the Ottawa 20/20 consultation process, the creation of a SmartBoardroom within City Hall to showcase SmartCapital and the City’s Internet services, and the setup and operation of online video capabilities for the City, integrated into City facilities and operations.

The purpose of this report is to present and highlight the 2003 workplan to Council for information.

DISCUSSION

The projects currently being planned and implemented in 2003 are described in greater detail below:

Online video capabilities: The online video subproject – which includes videoconferencing and webcasting – is the most significant project within the City of Ottawa’s SmartCapital plan in terms of investment, complexity and innovation.

Within the next few months, the City will acquire a complete physical infrastructure and all the necessary support to stage and operate its own videoconferences and webcasts, and serve video-on-demand through the Internet. In addition, a number of technologically-enhanced events will be held and a range of new multimedia content will be created to demonstrate the value of these technologies to improve service delivery, make operations more efficient, enhance the democratic process, and demonstrate the value of broadband applications, as well as demonstrate the City’s leadership role in this area.

Videoconferencing: Videoconferencing technology will give the City the ability to hold meetings between and among people located in two or more locations. Videoconferencing is managed by a series of audio-video units that record the activities at each location and transmit it to the others. This enables real-time discussions that can drastically reduce or eliminate travel time and related costs.

While this technology offers some practical operational benefits to the City that will be tested and assessed as part of this project, a key driver for 2003 will be to use this technology to enhance the democratic process by making discussions about City issues more open and accessible to residents, particularly rural residents.

Pilot projects include incorporating videoconferencing into select Committee meetings and other public forums to enable residents to “attend” and take part in proceedings taking place at City Hall without having to travel to City Hall, merely by attending videoconference-enabled sessions at a number of locations far from City Hall. These remote locations are yet to be determined, as important connectivity issues are still being worked out, but tentative plans call for at least six remote locations dispersed throughout the city, including a number of rural areas.

This technology will also be used to demonstrate the ability to bring experts to Ottawa electronically from different cities in Canada and elsewhere in a conference format, for information, education and group discussions.

Webcasting: Webcasts are similar to live television broadcasts in as much as events are filmed and recorded and show to the public as they happen. The big difference is that while a TV broadcast appears on a particular TV channel at a particular time, webcasts are viewed on personal computers through the Internet.

The City already has some experience with webcasts; external consultants produced a number of webcast events during the SmartSummit in June 2001. Through this project, the City will acquire its own equipment and have the ability to webcast virtually any public event from City Hall, although we will be selective in our choices, particularly in this startup and demonstration phase. Among the events that may be webcast are a number of the videoconference events described above.

Video on demand / audio on demand: This takes the form of audio-video or audio-only “clips” that have previously been recorded for playback later, through the Internet. This could include all or parts of a webcast that may be held. One of the key strengths of this technology will be to enable the City to have a wide range of audio-video or audio-only “clips” available to residents on demand – when they want to see and hear it. This content can be integrated into other Internet content to enhance the message and bring communication to a higher level. In recent months, this technology has been used to record a number of public consultation events and make the proceedings available on demand later.

Youth Channel: As it is currently structured, the City website is a “one-site-fits-all” portal, with content and information divided by department and/or type of service and activity. The Youth Channel will be the City’s first attempt to deliver eServices more effectively to a demographic or psychographic group by making information of interest to that group available in one location. The Youth Channel will be a one-stop shop where youth can find out about City services, non-City services, and other information of interest to youth. The processes created by the development of the Youth Channel and the lessons learned from its implementation has the potential to serve as a model for other channels to be developed in the future, such as a seniors channel.

SmartBoardroom: The SmartBoardroom will be a facility within City Hall that can be set up as required to showcase the City’s online services as well as SmartCapital initiatives, and to facilitate “smart meetings” that will take advantage of videoconference capabilities to be acquired as part of the online video initiative.

Timelines: Online video/videoconferencing equipment will be installed, tested and debugged by early second quarter, 2003. In the meantime, event schedules and operating plans will be finalized, a series of internal information sessions will be held to inform and educate staff and officials, and audio-video content will be gather and created.

In the second quarter, 2003, live events will begin to take place, including videoconference-enabled Committee meetings. One event currently being explored is the presentation of the final Ottawa 20/20 Growth Management Plans for discussion and approval by Committee of the Whole on April 23.

Events will continue though September, culminating in the SmartCapital Videoconference, a series of sessions that will electronically bring together staff and politicians from Ottawa and other municipalities, and experts from across Canada and beyond, to discuss issues such as Edemocracy, Egovernment, Growth Management and Transportation.

It is anticipated that the Youth Channel will be added to ottawa.ca in April 2003.

The SmartBoardroom should be operational by May 2003.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS

N/A

RURAL IMPLICATIONS

Videoconference and video-on-demand technology creates the opportunity to enhance the democratic process, as well as to bring City Hall to remote locations and offer additional convenience, particularly for rural residents.

SMART CAPITAL STATUS REPORT

Rapport d’étape de CapitaleGéniale

ACS2003-CRS-INT-0004

David Johnston, Manager, IM/IT Planning, Information Technology Services, Corporate Services Department, began by introducing Messrs. Seymour Diener, Project Manager, Smart Capital Project, City of Ottawa and Paul Wilker, Executive Director, Smart Capital, Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI). Mr. Johnston then provided the Committee with a brief PowerPoint presentation overview of the staff report (on file with the City Clerk).

Mayor Chiarelli felt that staff had been too modest and not specific enough in their report, such that the public would not be able to understand the great job that is being done. He explained this program was a result of a competition initiated by the Department of Industry, with a winner chosen in each province and awarded $5 million to institute a smart program in the community. The City of Ottawa won for the Province of Ontario (competing against some 35 other municipalities) and the Mayor attributed this accomplishment in part to the fact that a partnership was assembled (including the universities, health care, City of Ottawa, OCRI, high-tech companies, etc.). He pointed out that approximately $8 million was leveraged in cash and in-kind contributions, in addition to the $5 million won in the competition.

The Mayor went on to say that in every other community there was competition within the community (e.g. universities competing against each other and economic development agencies within a given community). The City of Ottawa was one of the few municipalities, if not the only one, that pulled the whole community together to form a partnership. Mayor Chiarelli said although the report outlined the business plan for the next twelve months, it did not clearly define the successes the project has achieved to date. He asked the presenters to describe some of what has been accomplished, for example the Smart Libraries project.

Mr. Wilker noted there were nine projects altogether. The Smart Libraries project came about at a fortuitous time because when the City amalgamated, each of the libraries were on different systems and therefore residents could not access the content in all of these libraries. The Smart Library program integrates all of the City libraries, the university libraries and the National Library into one portal where the citizens can get information, books, CD’s, videos etc. from any of these facilities. Mr. Wilker stated he believed the Smart Capital project actually drove the public libraries to interface with the university libraries and the National Library and formed a consortium, which is really quite strong and very unique. He said he did not think there was any other City in Canada that has this type of integration. The program will be officially launched formally in September.

Mr. Wilker expressed his appreciation to Council for the funding it provided to OCRI three years earlier to begin this program. He felt the $140,000 in funding provided to put the plan together, had yielded a good result and a good return on investment.

Mayor Chiarelli noted several months previous there was an official opening at Carleton University of a partnership that included Rogers, OCRI and several other key partners which would bring high speed internet to every student of the participating institutions. Mr. Wilker confirmed this was an initiative of the Smart Capital project and advised OCRI had worked in partnership with Rogers to provide internet services to the two universities (Carleton University and University of Ottawa) and La Cité Collégiale, consolidating their need for internet and driving the cost down.

Councillor Legendre had questions concerning the Smart Boardroom project. Mr. Johnston advised the intent of this project is to make it as mobile as possible, so that any of the City Hall boardrooms can be used. He explained the intended customers of this would be both the public and any other organization that would typically use the City’s public meeting rooms (e.g. The Ottawa Partnership (TOP) might take advantage of this type of facility).

Responding to questions from Councillor Hume, Mr. Diener advised that in terms of connecting one facility to another, video conferencing technology will be used. He explained this is essentially equipment that allows you to see, hear and speak to people at different locations. The Smart Boardrooms are more of a meeting facilitator for public discussions, where the Smart Boardroom technology would be used within the boardroom.

Councillor Stavinga asked if the Ottawa Youth Cabinet was involved in the Youth Channel initiative. Mr. Diener advised the Ottawa Youth Cabinet has a member on the project’s steering committee. He said as the plans are rolled out, the Youth Cabinet will be fully involved and he noted the project teams was attempting to match their plans to the Ottawa Youth Cabinet’s objectives wherever possible.

That the Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee and Council receive this report for information.

RECEIVED

BACKGROUND

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS

RURAL IMPLICATIONS

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS