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  • Join the the i-Canada Summit in Two Weeks!


    i-Canada Alliance    The i-CANADA “New National Dream” Summit at Caesar’s in Windsor on November 16-17, 2011 was originally planned as a smaller meeting of the i-CANADA Advisory Board. Attendance has grown beyond the original plan because of the interest by many who signed the Declaration on LinkedIn to create the i-Canada Alliance as a national movement.

    Attendance now includes members of the i-CANADA Council of Governors, Mayors, dozens of Economic Development Officers, industry executives, academia, and community leaders in Health Care, First Responder, Creative Arts, Productivity, Human Resources, and other stakeholder groups.

    Discussion and collaboration at the Summit is crystallizing around:

    • A unique quick Self Assessment i-CAT guide to map communities through the process of becoming more globally competitive as “Smart Cities”; it is the product of massive collaboration with industry , academic and i-community leaders such as IBM, Intel, FunctionFour, ING DIRECT, Miller Thomson, Rhyzome Networks, Ryerson University and the City of Windsor.
    • The ‘Growing Millionaires’ ecosystem model from New Brunswick: “We used to be known for potatoes and fish; now New Brunswick is a showcase for digital investments and green waves of wealth.”
    • Resource matchmaking between vendors and community leaders, to match the latest methods and services with the pressing needs of community officers charged with evolving their cities.
    • Dashboards that provide at-a-glance views of a city’s systems and operations.
    • Matching Toronto’s i-Waterfront Challenge of one gigabit per second bandwidth from your home and much more for business – and what it does for healthcare, the arts, policing, city administration and the need to keep up with the best.
    • Proven Processes and Best Practices for creating some of the world’s leading i-Communities.

    The Summit in Windsor is definitely the place to be for anyone interested in supporting these goals and the i-CANADA national movement while trading ideas on how to transform their community into an i-Community … whether it is a region, a city or a smaller community … local or remote.

    The IBM Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for Smarter Cities will be demonstrated and it is an important development for the transformation of community operations management in tomorrow’s communities. Think of a dashboard that allows for the monitoring and potential control of certain city operations from one central location. The IOC will be demonstrated with the i-CANADA Assessment Tools (i-CAT) in what will truly be an amazing world first. i-CAT has been created over the past year by an i-CANADA sponsored initiative comprised of seventeen leaders in community measurement and operations from the corporate, academic, research, consulting and municipal worlds.

    i-CANADA is not just about technology and communications infrastructure although ICT certainly provides the foundation and we intend to continually promote the best and newest in ICT to become globally competitive. It is a great opportunity for our ICT companies too. IDC government Insights estimates that the Smarter Cities IT market is $34 billion in 2011 rising to $57 billion in 2014, and increase of 18% per year.

    The Summit and the i-CANADA movement also promotes the other essential elements in an i-Community including effective marketing of the community, a focus on digital democracies and a wide range of creative and social innovations. Canadians from the creative and social sectors will be there to share their ideas for moving forward.
    Broadband for rural and remote areas is an important one too so come and meet Suvi Linden who is flying in from Finland to speak. Dr Linden was Minister of Communications when her government was the first in the world to implement legislation declaring “Access to Broadband is a Fundamental Right”. Rest assured it will be a rich discussion of many opportunities when we meet at the i-CANADA Summit in Windsor. Everyone who supports the i-CANADA movement and wants to help their community’s transformation to renewed economic and social innovation should be there.

  • The i-CANADA Vision


    i-Canada Alliance    Canada is acknowledged as the world’s leading Intelligent Nation or “i-Nation” because a sufficiently broad base of Canadian communities, large and small, have all won international awards as the world’s leading Intelligent Communities.

    The global Intelligent Community Forum defines the principal characteristics of an Intelligent Community as: Broadband Connectivity, Innovation, Knowledge Workforce, Digital Inclusion, and Marketing and Advocacy. Intelligent Communities of the Year inevitably achieve above average rates of economic growth, job creation, social diversification and environmental innovation, an attractive result that is encouraging an increasing number of civic leaders to adopt i-Community strategies.

    Transforming Canada through a world class national framework and infrastructure to achieve i-Nation status will reverse our comparative global decline in innovation, productivity and broadband communications. It will enhance our leadership in delivering a strong and sustainable “triple bottom line” of economic, social and environmental performance throughout the evolution of the Knowledge Age and we will create new hope and economic opportunities for all Canadians.

    What does an Intelligent Canada look like?

    • Canadians living in the north, or in aboriginal communities, and throughout Canada have access to our best interactive and diagnostic health, learning and training, and business development services … all available without leaving home.
    • Global companies invest in Canada thanks to the unparalleled quality of place and advanced low cost open access ultra broadband communications that supports an array of talent working in an environment conducive to collaboration and innovation.
    • Open access ultra broadband infrastructures facilitate new health caregiver support systems that will dramatically expand support for patients with cancer, diabetes and other debilitating ailments. Ageing with dignity in the home through enhanced caregiver support becomes a reality and healthcare costs per capita decline significantly.
    • Intelligent buildings, smart grid and other environmental initiatives reduce the carbon footprint of our communities, contributing significantly to Canada’s environmental goals.
    • New forms of telepresence collaboration stimulate collaborative research, innovation, the creation of new young companies and improved competitiveness of others.
    • Intelligent transportation is a reality with reduced environmental impacts, improved service, shorter travel times and fewer accidents.
    • Educators provide a more engaging and interactive learning experience to meet the diverse needs of learners making the dream of “classrooms without walls” a reality. Learning truly takes place beyond the classroom, tailored to each individual’s own unique style, pace, place and time. Virtual collaboration between parents and teachers really works.
    • Advanced forms of entertainment and information services are connected to community home entertainment centres presenting new ways to watch hundreds of cultural, sporting, news and other events.
    • Business collaborates with the arts and cultural communities to define new frontiers in digital media thanks to a competitive blend of creativity and technology that produces new products, services, investments, international trade and employment opportunities for all Canadians.

    Progress – the i-CANADA Vision Today

    Excitement and interest in i-CANADA has continued to grow since the launch of the i-CANADA Vision fifteen months ago. Communities and their elected leaders and other officials from coast to coast are now participating and striving for Intelligent Community status. More than 1,000 experts, including i-CANADA Governors, Premiers, Mayors, CEOs, expert advisors, and other supporters are debating issues on the i-CANADA social network.

    During the past year, i-CANADA has assembled a system of proven models, frameworks and processes to assist communities at all stages of becoming an Intelligent Community. In the past few months a committee of seventeen experts from the public and private sectors has created what may be the world’s most detailed community measurement and assessment system. It will allow communities to determine where they are on the scale of Intelligent Community development, benchmark themselves against others and establish milestones for their future progress.

    All of these assets will be reviewed at the first meeting of i-CANADA’s Board of Advisors and other community and visionary leaders in Windsor, Ontario, on November 16 and 17, 2011 —another sign of the growing commitment to i-CANADA.

    Achieving global i-Nation status will support our dreams and opportunities and we hope you will join those already participating in our vision to create i-CANADA … The World’s Leading Intelligent Nation.

    Bill Hutchison
    Chair, i-CANADA Alliance

    Barry Gander
    Co-Founder, i-CANADA Alliance

    August 28, 2011

    Download the i-CANADA Vision statement (pdf).

  • Waterfront Toronto Announces Major Ultra Broadband Initiative

    The work leading up to Waterfront Toronto’s major ultra broadband announcement yesterday has certainly consumed a good piece of my life over the last four years. In fact, the planning began in 2004 but the result will be a “Living Lab” to drive change through Toronto, Ontario and Canada.

    Coincident with the signing of the agreements to create this world class community communications service, I have resigned from my executive role responsible for this project at Waterfront Toronto to spend more time as Founding Chair of i-CANADA. I will also be advising cities around the world on strategies for becoming Intelligent Communities that capitalize on the latest in computer and communications technologies to achieve improved economic and social innovation and growth.

    The goal of i-CANADA is to help a large number of Canadian communities rise up to Intelligent Community status, thereby raising Canada to be an Intelligent Nation. Achieving this goal will reverse Canada’s declining international rankings in Innovation, Productivity and Broadband.

    Following are two media quotes from today’s many press reports of yesterday’s announcement. The full announcement and background information can be found in the “newsroom” at Waterfront Toronto’s web site: www.waterfrontoronto.ca.


    A speed-wired waterfront
    Excerpted from The Toronto Star, published on June 7, 2011
    by Patty Winsa, Urban Affairs Reporter

    Imagine being able to download a full-length movie onto your laptop in eight seconds, watch your kids play in the park from the comfort of your condo or connect to the Internet from under an umbrella at Sugar Beach.

    Waterfront Toronto announced yesterday that residents who move into one of the city’s new waterfront communities will have something no one else in Canada has at home — unlimited access to one of the fastest Internet networks in the world, WiFi and a one-of-a-kind community portal.

    What it does: Provides unlimited residential Internet with download and upload speeds of 100 megabits a second, 500 times faster than typical North American networks. Movies download in eight seconds compared with an hour and a half through a phone line or 20 minutes via a cable modem.

    It also allows residents to access a community portal on a TV, tablet or computer. The portal is in development, but could be used to make reservations at a local restaurant, or to see the view from cameras trained on public spaces.

    Costs: Home users will pay $60 a month for Internet, WiFi and the community portal, a price guaranteed for 10 years. Upgraded packages, at $100, will include phone, Internet and TV. Business packages will start at $79 a month.

    Read the complete article here.


    by Christopher Hume
    Excerpted from The Toronto Star, published on June 7, 2011

    If that sounds like the stuff of every city planner’s dream, listen to Alan Vihant, vice-president of development at Great Gulf, who, with architect Moshe Safdie, is in the middle of putting together a large mixed-use project at the foot of Sherbourne St.

    “This is a big deal for us,” Vihant enthuses. “Knowledge workers are going to demand that kind of service. They’re already used to living in high rises. They’re going to want to walk to work. They want to be close to Union Station and public transit. The next generation of workers all wants to live down here.”

    Read the complete article here.

  • It’s time for Canada to become an Intelligent Nation!

    Ten days from now, on June 3rd in New York, the Intelligent Community Forum will announce the 2011 Intelligent Community of the Year. The winner will be selected from among the Top 7 finalists remaining in the competition that began with more than 300 applicants. Once again this year Canada has two of the Top 7: Stratford and Windsor-Essex. Last year, we had Fredericton and Moncton in the Top 7. The fact is that the world’s leading Intelligent Communities have consistently had higher rates of economic development and employment growth than their neighbouring communities. They certainly are innovative communities and they attract foreign investment.

    Canada has islands of excellence, as evidenced by our performance in the annual Intelligent Community competition. However, as a nation our international standings in innovation, productivity and broadband performance continue to decline when compared to other leading nations. The goal of i-CANADA is to reverse this trend by encouraging and supporting many Canadian communities to all rise up to international standards and compete to be the Intelligent Community of the Year. If they are successful, not only will our communities reap the rewards experienced by all other Intelligent Community winners, but Canada will become an Intelligent Nation as we string together our pearls of excellence into a national necklace of excellence.

    Last Wednesday, May 18th I was pleased to Chair the Executive Panel on Technology Trends as part of CATA’s Annual Gala. The following video provides comments from panel participants and during the banquet I described i-CANADA’s growth over the past year following our announcement of i-CANADA at the same Gala a year ago.

    More than one thousand individuals, companies and institutions have signed the i-CANADA Declaration; ING Direct and IBM have signed on as Diamond Sponsors; members of the Governors Council already include Hon. David Alward, Premier of New Brunswick as Chair with a number of mayors and CEOs as fellow governors. Other Canadian leaders have joined the Advisory Council as subject matter experts and the Board of Directors is providing governance and guidance. Further information is flowing in the i-CANADA LinkedIn Forum, and I invite all interested parties in Canada to join the parade to raise Canada to Intelligent Nation status, while also raising our national broadband, innovation and productivity performance to once again lead the world.

  • CATAAlliance celebrates technology innovation, leadership at May 18th gala in Ottawa

    The 26th Annual CATAAlliance Innovation and Leadership Awards Gala Dinner will be held May 18, 2011 at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. The event celebrates the best of Canadian innovation and showcases the world’s most adopted technologies.

    For over two decades, the CATAAlliance Innovation and Leadership Awards Gala Dinner has been celebrating the best in Canadian advanced technology. It has become one of the most eagerly awaited events in Canada’s business calendar. Award sinners are recognized for their innovation, expertise, and leadership in Canada’s advanced technology community.

    Guest emcee Paul Brent, host of CTV’s Tech Now, will lead a Power Podium Panel including Sir Terence Matthews and other industry leaders, focusing on this year’s event theme of Technology Futures.

    Get all the details here!

  • Touting Our Top 7 Intelligent Community Contenders – Windsor and Stratford

    Canada and Ontario are fortunate to have two communities named as the TOP 7 in the New York based Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) annual search for the Intelligent Community of the Year. Stratford and Windsor are both doing a fabulous job vying for the international award this year. For the past two years, Moncton and Fredericton, New Brunswick were Top 7 communities so some regions of Canada are receiving important international publicity around the ICF Awards as well as the local economic and social benefits that result from creating the world’s leading Intelligent Communities.

    The three co-founders of the ICF are Robert Bell, John Jung and Lou Zacharillo, and a two-day assessment visit by one of them is part of the evaluation process leading up to the final award. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, Robert Bell visited Windsor and I was invited to the Windsor event in my capacity as Chair of i-CANADA, along with our Vice Chair Barry Gander, to demonstrate i-CANADA’s support for Windsor. We were blown away by Windsor’s initiatives over the past four years, to recover from the collapse of the automotive industry by transforming themselves and creating a wide range of new economic and social initiatives. I took the following photo at the final dinner in Windsor showing Mayor Eddie Francis, Robert Bell in the centre and the Honourable Sandra Pupatello, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade. Leaders from across all sectors of Windsor attended the events and very effectively demonstrated the “Collaboration Ecosystem” that is fundamental to creating a Top 7 Intelligent Community.

    Eddie Francis, Mayor of Windsor, Robert Bell, Co-Founder of the Intelligent community Forum and Sandra Pupatello, Ontario Minister of Economic Development and Trade

    Left to right: Eddie Francis, Mayor of Windsor, Robert Bell, Co-Founder of the Intelligent community Forum and Sandra Pupatello, Ontario Minister of Economic Development and Trade

    Lou Zacharillo visited Stratford two weeks ago for his assessment, and Stratford too put on an impressive show to demonstrate their community’s evolution by building on the human skills and assets around the Stratford Festival to create new digital media initiatives and also extending their economic base and social initiatives in to other sectors.

    i-CANADA has signed letters of support for Stratford and Windsor as very important Canadian entries in this international competition because the goal of i-CANADA is to raise Canada to Intelligent Nation status through the initial creation of at least thirty communities, large and small, all competing effectively to be Global Intelligent Community of the Year. Achieving that goal will reverse the downward trend in Canada’s international standings in broadband, innovation and productivity. It will also create new prosperity for all Canadian citizens.

    The Intelligent Community of the Year will be announced on June 3rd at the wrap up luncheon of the ICF’s annual conference in New York. For more details, to go www.intelligentcommunity.org. I will be there … haven’t missed one since 2004 … and anyone else interested in creating intelligent or smart communities should also attend, particularly if you wish to achieve community and citizen benefits by leveraging today’s ICT revolution. See you there!

    By the way, don’t forget to follow the amazing growth of i-CANADA through our LinkedIn discussions, starting with my article on What Does Intelligent Canada Look Like?

  • Exciting momentum in the Intelligent Community movement as Newmarket signs on

    I’m thrilled to report that the Newmarket Chamber of Commerce has officially joined the intelligent community movement.

    Newmarket chamber signs technology declaration
    By Teresa Latchford
    yorkregion.com
    March 30, 2011

    The Newmarket Chamber of Commerce has officially joined the intelligent community movement.

    By signing the i-Canada Declaration, the local chamber has joined more than 100 other Canadian organizations and companies voicing their support in recognizing digital infrastructure as key to future economic development. Those who have signed the declaration pledge to work locally and nationally to accelerate the development of connected communities and regain the country’s leadership in the digital economy.

    Read the complete article here.

  • Michael Geist points out how the election gives us the opportunity to ask candidates about Internet policy

    As usual, Michael Geist has hit the nail on the head. In his recent column in the Toronto Star, he has done a great job of summarizing a number of initiatives that Canada needs to get right if we really want to participate effectively in the 21st century with respect to economic growth and social prosperity:

    Geist: Now’s our chance to ask candidates about Internet policy
    By Michael Geist
    Internet Law Columnist

    March 25, 2011
    Toronto Star

    The federal election call marks the end for at least five government bills focused on Internet and digital policy. Bills on privacy, copyright, and Internet surveillance died on the order paper and will have to start from scratch when a new government is elected in May. Moreover, the much-anticipated digital economy strategy, set for release this spring, has likely been delayed until the fall at the very earliest.

    While the legislative process may be on hold, the election campaign offers Canadians the chance to raise the profile of Internet and digital issues even further by voting for the Internet. The Internet is obviously not a political party, but a vote for the Internet means asking candidates for their views on the country’s top digital issues.

    Read the complete article here in the Toronto Star. It’s also posted to Michael Geist’s blog here.

  • Usage-based billing opens up a much larger debate about public broadband

    The very serious debate about usage based billing on the Internet cannot be resolved by a mere “yes or no”. It is part of a larger issue around investment and who should be investing. Notwithstanding claims to the contrary by some in Canada, anyone who travels internationally, or reads credible international evaluations knows that Canada is well behind other countries when it comes to our global position with respect to the performance and related cost of public broadband in Canada.

    It used to be that our incumbent public communications companies could make a financial return from their services, sufficient to support an investment that kept Canada near the head of the pack internationally. But, to use just one example, the ultra broadband services in other countries that facilitate interactive health care services into the home cannot be charged sufficiently by the communication companies to support the cost of providing a gigabit per second into homes at $60 per month, which is where other countries are heading. Today, the public can have 100 megabits per second in Stockholm, Tokyo, and many other cities, for around $50 per month. In Canada, the standard is closer to 5 mb/sec, with exceptions to 10mb/sec in some places.

    The ever increasing opportunities for intelligent ultra broadband infrastructures have a public interest related to our economic and social development that our regulatory, investment and implementation strategies have to consider. We can’t merely start charging more to narrow our cattle paths when others are building super highways and charging less. Equally, we can’t lay all of the problem on the incumbent carriers as it is a broader issue. National economic and social issues are being impacted by our public broadband performance and this is a great opportunity for Prime Minister Harper and his Ministers to address the broader strategy.

    Read more about this important issue here on the CATA Alliance Web site, in their statement entitled “CATA, i-CANADA Ask Prime Minister to Use Review to Create New Broadband Policy Model to Deal With Usage-Based Billing, Service Provision.”

  • Congratulating Stratford and Windsor-Essex for making the list of the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the year

    This week, I was pleased to be part of the following exciting announcement:
    i-Canada Alliance
    Ottawa, January 24, 2011 – i-Canada Chairman Bill Hutchison has sent his congratulations to officials in two Canadian cities — Stratford and Windsor-Essex — on their achievement of making the list as one of the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the year.

    “To have two Canadian cities among the Top Seven in this competition says a lot about Canada’s capabilities and potential,” said i-Canada Chair Bill Hutchison. i-Canada is a program driven by grass roots business, civic and academic leaders, dedicated to raising Canada to “i-Nation” status through the development of intelligent communities across the country. The world’s leading i-Nations consistently have high rankings in innovation, productivity, job creation, and social prosperity.

    Read the complete announcement here on the CATA Alliance Web site.