Windsor has taken some heat for getting upstaged by little old Stratford, population 32,000, in becoming Canada’s first test site for driverless vehicles. Led by overachiever Mayor Dan Mathieson, Stratford has installed Wi-Fi city wide to land the test site in collaboration with the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association and the University of Waterloo.
The news sparked memories of how Stratford has been named multiple times a “Top Seven Intelligent Community” by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), a New York-based Think Tank. Windsor Essex was named a “Top Seven Intelligent Community” in
2011 among 450 applicants world-wide, but has not applied since as Stratford pressed forward.
Winners are judged to embrace the Broadband Economy, planning and achieving in theever advancing use of high-speed Internet access for community and economic development.
The smart city partners regionally “have changed our focus,” says County of Essex
Chief Administrative Officer Brian Gregg, one of the early driving forces behind Connecting Windsor-Essex. They have determined it is too expensive to have Wi-Fi region wide, given the cost of perpetual speedier upgrades and liability issues. Structurally, the big change has been the dismantling of the Centre For Smart Community Innovation (CSCI), no longer under the umbrella of the University of Windsor following the departure of smart city application whiz Kristina Verner to WaterfrontToronto and CSCI Director Todd Sands to the private sector.
Connecting Windsor Essex still meets every six weeks under the chairmanship of Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board Treasurer Mario Iatonna. The consortium employs six people with an annual budget of $4.9 million.
The City of Windsor’s share is $235,000. The partners are all from the public sector and one of the goals is to recruit private sector partners and collaborate withthe Southwestern Ontario high-speed network, called SWIFT. “We are always looking at ways to improve speed and access across the system,” says Gregg.
