OpenGov

The City of Edmonton has been dedicated to using technology to make municipal information more open, transparent and accessible since early 2009 through the use of the Open Data Catalogue. Through public and business engagement, collaboration and innovation Edmonton has become a leader in Open Government.

What is Open Government? For Edmonton it simply means using technology to increase citizen’s access to information. In doing so, we believe that residents can make more-informed decisions about their government and community.

Confidential and sensitive information held by the City will continue to be handled in accordance with existing protocols, and provincial and federal law.

Timeline and some of the highlights

February 18, 2009 - Edmonton Transit officially launched Google Transit trip planning, This app makes use of  City of Edmonton geo-spatial data. At TransitCamp Edmonton on May 30, 2009, that data was made available to local developers. This was the first step towards Open Data and Open Government in Edmonton.

November 21, 2009 - Volunteers from the City of Edmonton and the local IT Community worked together to develop a one-day workshop to explore the possibility of an open data catalogue in Edmonton.  Residents from both Edmonton and Calgary gathered to discuss opportunities, desired data sets, and the principles of creating such a catalogue.

January 13, 2010 - Based on the discussion from the Open Data Workshop, on January 13, 2010 our online open data catalogue and open data report was presented to Council’s Executive Committee.

March 6, 2010 - The City of Edmonton hosted the Open City Workshop. This event brought together community leaders, academics, students, technology enthusiasts and public sector employees to explore and advance the role of Open Information in Alberta's capital region.

June 23, 2010 - Edmonton holds Canada’s first Open Data competition. The official competition closed on August 27, 2010. 32 Apps and 86 ideas were submitted.

July 2010 - Edmonton joins the other Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa to form the G4 -- a group working on creating a national data strategy for Canada.

April 9, 2010 - Sponsored by the City of Edmonton and Alberta’s Privacy Commissioner, CityCamp was an international unconference focused on innovation for municipal governments and community organizations in relation to progressing Open Government in Edmonton and region.

July 11, 2011 - Edmonton launches the second version of the Edmonton Open Data Catalogue

What’s in store?

Summer 2011 - We are working with the different branches and business areas across the City to track down more data that we can release in an open, machine readable format. 

See what data sets we are getting ready to release

For more information:

Ashley Casovan