A ban on facial recognition technology is not the answer. It is possible to utilize this important technology, while also taking measures to ensure its responsible application. In fact, facial recognition with de-identification technology can be used to protect privacy.

We're thrilled for all the winners of the Smart Cities Canada Challenge! As a Smart Cities technology solutions partner, we are excited to see how these communities use innovation to better the lives of their citizens.

We are pleased to announce that the City and County of Denver has notified Radical I/O of their intent to award, pending contracts, for on-call agile professional services for their Smart City initiatives.

Radical I/O worked with the City of Richmond to imagine the future of online municipal services. This vision helped the team collaboratively build and launch the initial foundation of a central web app, which drives value for their customers today, as we continue to work together to incorporate new online services in the future. MyRichmond is a personalized web portal for City of Richmond customers to access online city services in one place using one login.

Empathy is the cornerstone to human-centered design. By building empathy, we are able to better see through the lens of our citizen groups. This allows us to design better systems that are human- and citizen-centered. In part 3 of our series, we’ll lead you through running a usability and citizen-centered design workshop with a team in order to have a deeper understanding of the citizen groups that you engage with, in order to better serve your citizens.

A connected Smart City can mean many things. At Radical, we believe that it means establishing a cohesive transportation and services network for a community where all levels of government (Federal, Provincial, Municipal) are involved. They could then use the data - about things like traffic patterns, water usage, and underutilized infrastructure - and work with citizens, city planners, and technology experts to achieve greater goals and create positive, meaningful change.

Simply put, it’s about creating design that functions for the end user and eliminating confusion along the way.

Taking the approach of a departmental and even intra-departmental view to implementing a citizen-centered government model, we make the task a lot less daunting. It’s possible to deliver positive impact and build momentum for organization-wide cultural change from the bottom up.