Ottawa: Rise of a Smart Community

Abstract

The need to communicate forced Canada to invent the tools of the modern Communications Age, which are now being used worldwide. Ottawa in particular became a hotbed of communications technology development, as it was home to government Research and Development Laboratories. It also had a heritage of innovation from local inventors who pioneered many of the electronic aids used in households today. Innovation, therefore, was given a springboard for growth in Ottawa’s culture. Innovation is the driver of the Smart Economy today, responsible for three-quarters of all economic growth in the USA since World War II. It is triggered by associations of ideas are intuitive; it arises from hunches and that vague hard-to-describe sense that there is an interesting solution to a problem that has not yet been addressed. The number of innovations in a centre is directly tied to the number of linkages in a centre: the higher the linkages between people, the greater the momentum of the innovation. To be effective as an economic force, a second ingredient is needed: the ability to find the commercial value of the innovation. This value-adding characteristic has thus far been difficult to assess due to the tentative nature of innovations in their early stages. In Ottawa, a new assessment tool is being used that can detect the overall intensity of the “Smart City” environment, based on hundreds of factors. Another new tool drills down to the organizational level and assesses the efficiency of the organization’s ability to commercialize innovation. These tools can be used by any city wishing to obtain a Smart Economy.