HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOR-20-019 - Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab UpdateREPORT TO:Finance and Corporate Services Committee
DATE OF MEETING:December 7, 2020
SUBMITTED BY:Murray, Dan, Director Technology Innovation and Services,519-
741-2200ext. 7825
PREPARED BY:Zinn, Courtney,Innovation Lab Director,519-741-2200ext. 7034
WARD(S) INVOLVED:All
DATE OF REPORT:November 23, 2020
REPORT NO.:COR-20-019
SUBJECT:Digital Kitchener InnovationLab Update
RECOMMENDATION:
That report COR-20-019, regarding the Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab be received
for information;and,
That staff from Economic Development report back to Council regarding future
partnership opportunities with Communitech in Q12021.
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS:
The 3-yearpilot of the Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab has been successfully
completed.
TheInnovation Lab will continue as a core service of the Technology Innovation
Services (TIS) division, providing strategic support to continue digital transformation
across the organization.
TIS has been able to operationalize the Lab’s service provision within existing
resources, ensuring sustainability of this business unit.
The Lab has successfully continued virtual operations throughout the pandemic,
contributing to data-driven initiativesto support the city’s response and recovery efforts.
This report supports the delivery of core services.
BACKGROUND:
This report is intended to provide an update on the Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab. The
Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab wasa three-year pilot project that began in the fall of
2017. The first 2 years of the pilot emphasized promoting the Digital Kitchener strategy
and vision internally and externally, solidifying Kitchener’s reputation as a recognized
smart city and exploringInternet of Things (IoT) opportunities. The final year of the pilot
has shifted focus to align projects with the goals of the City’s strategic plan, taking action
to demonstrate emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and
augmented reality, and enable partnerships within our local tech and academic
*** This information is available in accessible formats upon request. ***
Please call 519-741-2345 or TTY 1-866-969-9994 for assistance.
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communities.Further, it has been a crucial contributor to the City’s success in responding
to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Learn more about Labprojects and achievements inthis interactive compilation.
REPORT:
The City’s investments in Communitech and the local tech community, along with the
Digital Kitchener strategy, facilitated the creation of Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab
enabling engagement with staff and stakeholders in new ways, leveraging the community
of practice to learn from and identify new possibilities for collaboration.
The first two years of the pilot focused on the City’s own internal learning as a new
member in the Communitech space, growing our reputation as a leader in the ‘Smart City’
space, and exploring Internet of Things (IoT) opportunities.
In its third year, having learned from others within the Communitech ecosystem and
listened to internal stakeholders about how the Lab could support city operations, the Lab
turned its attention to delivering collaborative, demand-driven services that are both future-
focused, and closely aligned with the City’s strategic objectives. This pivot in business
model has proven extremely successful, enabling internal customers to advance their
business objectives.
Guidedby the award-winning vision of the Digital Kitchener strategy, the demonstrated
achievements of the Lab over the pilot period have led the City of Kitchener to be
recognized as a leader in innovation.The city’s efforts are oftencited by thought leaders
on smart cities and havebeen recognized throughinternationally acclaimed awards
(Smart Cities Connect – 2020 Smart 50 Award for Multi-modal traffic counting, and LS
Network – Canadian Outdoor Lighting Project of the Year – 2018).The Lab also continues
to receive requests from other cities to consult on and present our journey as these cities
develop their own innovation centres.
Based on the success of the final year of the pilot, the Lab’s mandate has been
operationalized within TIS to ensure digital innovation is further embedded as a core service.
The Lab will continue to provide the City an experimental framework to explore new ideas
and concepts, focussing onthe following services,which have shown through the pilot to
provide the most value to the organization, to our partners (academia and tech), and to the
citizens we serve:
1.Design sprints
Using a design-sprint model, the Lab leads teams through a rapid-fire approach to
problem solving, guiding an idea from problem definition to prototyping and user
testingbefore pitching a solution for implementation.This approach has been used
in the following strategic initiatives:
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Table 1: Design Sprint Examples
Strategic ProjectImpact
Web Experience 2020 Exploring how we might useChatbots and Voice
ProjectAssistants to enhanceCustomer Service, we learned
about citizen interest, expectations and the effort that
would be required to move forward in implementing
and maintaining these technologies.
Pandemic Response: Supported Community Centre staff in applying Design
Reopening Community Thinking techniques to brainstormand prioritize ideas
Centres after on how we might support the community and enable
Lockdownsocial connections in the reopening of community
centresthrough three virtual stakeholder workshops.
Air Quality Data In collaborationwith Wilfred Laurier University and
EngagementHemmeraEnvirochem Inc., the citydeployed 5 air
qualitypods near schoolsthis fallto collect real-time air
quality data. With thegoal of making the hyperlocalized
data actionable to the school community and inform
community climate action planning, we engaged with
community stakeholders to explore how we might make
the data meaningfuland prototype ideas for a platform
to visualize and interact with the informationin
meaningful ways.
2.Rapid prototyping
Making an idea tangible with very little investment can help buildunderstandingof
the potential benefits and unexpected impacts of new technologies on customer
experience and business processes. Prototypes can take many forms and offer
opportunities to experiment with multiple options, gather feedback and understand
the scope of an initiative early-on when the effort to pivot or make changes is low.
Table 2: Rapid Prototyping examples
StakeholderPrototype/Impact
Emergency Operations The Lab has supported pandemic response through
Centre – Pandemic collaborations with TIS staff on a number of data-driven
Responseinitiatives:
Workforce Status Tracking – rapidly developed and
deployed a daily status tracking tool in March
which has enabled detailed reporting and analysis
of workforce trends toinform decision making.
Contactless Summer Camp screening and logging
- created tools to enable summer camp participants
to be screened and checked into camp
electronically, enabling real-time information to
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ensure screening was completed and contact
tracing records were available.
Active Screening Application - Collaborated with
TIS and HR on the creation of the recently
deployed active screening applicationto provide a
quick response to changing requirements. This tool
leveragesthe workforce status information to
monitor compliancewith screening protocols.
Parks & CemeteriesDevelopeda people/dog counting application using
computer vision and edge processing that can be used
to measure the use of dog parksorother public
spaces; supportingdata-informedand demand-driven
decision making on space planning.
Planning Division Developedan AugmentedReality application for
visualizing 3D building models. Showcased at the 2019
Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI)
Conference, this application gained significantattention
from other municipalitiesprovince-wideas a valuable
toolin improving citizen engagement.
Customer Service/ Parks Experimented with wayfindingusing augmented reality,
and Cemeteriesfocusingon enhancing customer wayfinding
experiences in city facilities or outdoor spaces.
Special Developedanapplicationprototypewhich uses
Events/Economic
geofencing to help connect citizens to local events.
Development
Communications/Developedan Amazon Alexa voice assistant skill
Customer Service
“Alexa, ask the City of Kitchener….”that leverages
open data to provide personalized information on city
services.
Parks & Cemeteries/DevelopedIoT sensorprototypesfor CO2, soil
Corporate Sustainability
moisture and asset tracking using low cost computing
tools like Arduino and Raspberry Pi, capturing data in
the field for real-time visualization
3.Technology Explorationand Collaborative Partnerships
Demonstrating emerging technologies can help identify use cases, envision future
possibilities, and test user interest before committing to larger scale investments.
Collaboration with the tech and academic communities as a member of the
Communitech ecosystem has enabled us toengagewith other corporate innovation
labs to share lessons and identify opportunities for collaboration. We’ve engaged
with multiple startups, connecting them with staff to explore how their early stage
technologies might be applied to municipal use cases and provide relevant feedback.
We’ve also partnered with local academic institutions on proposed and current
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projects, such as the air quality initiative outlined above. Our connection to this
community has remained active even as the pandemic has impacted our ability to
leverage everyday encounterswithin the labspaceand shifted our operations to the
virtual environment. We’ve found new waysto stay connectedthrough virtual events
and meetupsand continue to leverage our connections within the community to
identify and explore new opportunities.
Examples of our technology exploration projects include:
o Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence –we’ve applied machine
learning to make recreation program recommendations and forecast water
main breaks. We are also applying sentiment analysis toolsand techniquesto
exploresocial mediafeedbackrelated to city programs and services.
o Augmented Imagery – we’ve brought print publications, such as the
Strategic Plan, to life using augmented imagery, enabling a multi-media
experience to be triggered from a mobile devicebased on a recognized
physical image.
o IoT –beyond building our own prototypes, we’ve also explored commercial
IoT products such as smart waste and smart parking to understand the
benefits and limitationsof these technologiesprior to making more significant
investments.
Summary
As the Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab matured in its final pilot year, it became clear that
innovation is embedded in our city’s “DNA”. This is evidenced in Council’s progressive and
ambitious Strategic Plan, and in the mindset of staff who are continually looking for ways
to improve operating efficiencies and enhance the citizen experience. Council’s initial
investment in the DK Innovation Lab as a 3-year pilotprojectfunded by the$300,000LED
streetlight savingscontributionandcontributions to Digital Kitchener from the Economic
Development Reserve Fundcovering the Lab Director salary and equipping the space,
enabled the City to become a leader in the Smart City space, recruit talented students
from the University of Guelph, Conestoga College, Wilfred LaurierUniversityand the
University of Waterloo, develop meaningful and impactful relationships with other tech
leaders and academic institutions, and experiment with and deliver digital innovations and
inventions to support city operations. Most importantly, it allowed the City to develop
internal talent and structures that have been crucial in the City’s response to the most
disruptiveevent in our generation’s history.
Guided by a clearly defined and strategic workplan, TIS has been able to retool existing
resources to operationalize the Lab as a core service. Led by the Innovation Lab Director
and supported by a flexible contingent of co-op studentsreflecting the skillsets and
resourcerequirements of the workplan, the Labteam will collaborate with staff subject
matter expertson initiatives toquickly move ideas forwardand continue supporting
improved efficiencies and citizen experiences. This nimble approach will allow us to
respond to diverse projects and technologies and evolve according to the needs of the
organization moving forward.
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The Lab has been operating ‘virtually’ since the pandemic was declared in March 2020,
delivering significant improvements. The benefit of a partnership with Communitech
extendsbeyond the physical space of the Lab within that ecosystem, and staff remain in
regular contact with Communitech in many ways, through eventsand programming,
corporate innovation labconnection points and virtual communitiesand directly with our
supports in Communitech’sCorporate Innovation teamwho assist in making connections
and providingresources to help us continue to move forwardwith our ambitious plans.
This report summarizes the operationalization of the Lab services within the City’s TIS
division; discussions with Communitech regarding future partnership opportunities
continue between the city’s Economic Development division and Communitech. Staff from
Economic Development will report back to Council on this in a separate report in Q1 in
2021.
STRATEGIC PLAN ALIGNMENT:
This report supports the delivery of core services.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:
The are no financial implications as staff have been able to integrate the benefits of the Lab
with existing staff FTE positionswithin Technology Innovation and Services.For any
renewed commitments required to Communitech for the ongoing use of the Lab space or
funding forspecific projects, those decisions will come back to committee for approval.
Capital Budget – The recommendation has no impact on the Capital Budget.
Operating Budget – The recommendation has no impact on the Operating Budget.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:
INFORM – This report has been posted to the City’s website with the agenda in advance of
the council / committee meeting.
PREVIOUS REPORTS/AUTHORITIES:
FCS-17-002 - Digital Kitchener Strategy
FCS-17-006 - Digital Kitchener - Civic Innovation Lab
FCS-18-009 - Digital Kitchener 2017-2018 Update
COR-19-017 - Digital Kitchener - 2019 Update
APPROVEDBY: Victoria Raab,General Manager, Corporate Services
ATTACHMENTS:
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