Executive Summary: City of Richmond, British Columbia

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The City of Richmond has developed a transformative and ground-breaking proposal for the Smart Cities Challenge. It will minimize community impacts from major disasters, while also enhancing our quality of life in day-to-day activities.

Working together with other levels of government and the private and academic sectors, we will integrate our mutual technology and data to protect our island city against the impacts of climate change. We will enhance mobility of people and goods, enable more informed decision making for both everyday situations and emergency response, integrate communications and strengthen community resilience.

Our proposal builds upon the City's award-winning best practices in flood protection, sustainability and emergency response. It draws upon Richmond's record of excellence, a corporate culture built on innovation and a track record of honouring the commitments we make, like delivering the premier venue  of the 2010 Olympic Games on time and on budget.

Implementing our Smart Cities vision will further transform Richmond. It will secure our future as a dynamic, informed community, made more resilient by using digital technology to bring the best of our City's resources together.

Our engagement during the Finalist Phase has already resulted in private sector innovation and investment to help test our Smart Cities solutions. This includes an exciting collaboration with MDA Corporation under the Federal Innovation Superclusters Initiative program, that has also attracted local and international businesses, and provincial government support. As we expand our focus of how we collaborate, we know this is only the beginning of many more partnerships.

Our Smart Cities journey has important lessons learned that are replicable and will benefit all cities, communities, and people across Canada.

What follows is our Smart Cities Challenge Finalist Submission that:

• Summarizes our overall solution;
• Illustrates how our Challenge Statement and outcomes flow through each aspect of our project; and
• Demonstrates how we will implement the City of Richmond's Smart Cities solution over the next five years.

1. VISION

Our proposal is designed to achieve our vision statement: "Together with our community, government, academic and technology team we will identify and mitigate risk and improve the day-to-day quality of life for residents and businesses on our island." The achievement of our vision statement will result in the following outcomes:

1. Protect our Island City
2. Enable More Informed Decision-Making
3. Integrate Communications and Enhance Community Resilience

2. PERFORMANCE  MEASUREMENT

Richmond is already a best practice leader in flood mitigation, sustainability and emergency response. Our Smart Cities projects were specifically designed to achieve identified outcomes to take our City and the integrated work of our partners, to a higher level of functioning, setting a new standard for municipal governments across Canada. We will measure our success through qualitative and quantitative indicators to ensure we are on track and continue to improve the quality of life for residents and businesses in Richmond.

3. PROJECT MANAGEMENT

We have established a robust project management structure to oversee and manage project planning and implementation, project risks, and partner/stakeholder relationships. We are guided by comprehensive Project Implementation Plans to define how each project will be executed, monitored, controlled, and closed.

4. TECHNOLOGY

Our plan outlines how technology can increase operational situational awareness. Our plan will be achieved through innovative partnerships and test cases including the Innovation Superclusters Initiative project team led by MDA and work conducted by UrbanLogiq, TIBCO, TELUS and others.

We will collect data from new and existing data sources and develop machine learning-based predictive models to identify and mitigate risk. We will partner with the Province and other key stakeholders to share data and information for research and analysis. Technology will also enable enhanced communication with our diverse population.

5. GOVERNANCE

We have established a governance structure which includes a strong coalition of more than 25 academic, government and technology advisors. We all are committed to achieving project outcomes aligned with the Smart Cities principles of Openness, Integration, Transferability and Collaboration.

6. ENGAGEMENT

Community engagement is a key priority for the City of Richmond. At every stage of the development of our final Smart Cities Challenge proposal, we have engaged with residents, a wide range of stakeholders from the business, technology and academic sectors and with other levels of government. This engagement has provided the opportunity to develop innovative, collaborative approaches to connect with a diverse audience and has guided the direction of our final submission. Our ongoing engagement plan incorporates a range of communication channels to ensure continued alignment with our community's needs and our project outcomes.

7. DATA AND PRIVACY

We are fully committed to protecting the privacy of our residents and are aware of the many complex challenges cities across Canada face in this regard. We are confident in the security by design and safeguards we are putting in place. We will make data security and privacy the first priority in design of all components of our Smart Cities projects and fully test and confirm our data environment, flows and security. We adhere to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA") and the British Columbia's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

8. FINANCIAL

We have developed a plan and will deliver our project on time and on budget. Our Smart Cities projects represent a total capital investment of $62,336,649 with $10,200,000 already committed in the City's existing Five Year Financial Plan. Through our partner network we have been able to identify and secure commitments for supplementary contributions of significant value of over $10,291,000. This includes a $5,400,000 economy-energizing investment from public and private partners that MDA Corporation is spearheading to be submitted to the Government of Canada's Innovation Superclusters Initiative.

9. IMPLEMENTATION PHASE REQUIREMENTS

From day one, our implementation plans have been guided by requirements and commitments to our residents and other stakeholders. This includes our commitments to meet applicable municipal, provincial, and federal legislative and policy requirements.