Provide Open Data
The city should make all municipal data available for download and reuse. This will make city operations more transparent, accountable, and effective, as well as allowing others to access data and make value-added services from this. Numerous cities across Canada (Ottawa, Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal) have had great success with making data of all types open. Take a look at the City of Edmonton initiative and think of what Waterloo could provide: https://data.edmonton.ca/
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David Aiken commented
I agree with Peter. I think he is talking about a city-backed initiative where the data is freely accessible to citizens. NYC runs their own freely-accessible map server with layers to expose property sales, taxes, zoning, construction etc. This information increases the speed and ease of assessing investment opportunities. The rise of open data coincides with the increasing convergence of open source cloud infrastructure components. I have less expertise than others in this area, but it may be a good time to build an open source cloud stack to host open data from cities. KW is well-positioned to drive this because of the relatively low cost of living and the expertise in UofW and Communitech. There are a lot of useful leading-edge technologies that can be explored in a number of disciplines if the data is available. City planning, business development (Wilfrid Laurier), data visualization etc. Obviously this would benefit from solid numbers, but there are possibilities here.
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Anonymous commented
why? what a waste of time and energy to put moeny in the pockets of some data developers to build some more apps they can charge me for on my smart phone and make crazy money. if they want it they should buy it just like i have to pay for a building permit and registering my kids for programs. this technology thing is getting way out of hand.