Over the next four years, Vancouver businesses will have new opportunities open to them as the city's new digital strategy is implemented. The plan will include nine programs within four areas:
- engagement and access;
- infrastructure and assets;
- economy; and
- organizational digital maturity, including digital enhancements in the regulatory framework, administrative infrastructure and information infrastructure. Businesses can expect to benefit from many of these changes.
"[We're] looking at maximizing the digital technology to create opportunities for dialogue and interaction with businesses," said Sandra Singh, chief librarian at the Vancouver Public Library, who is the co-lead of the Digital Strategy Team.
Improvements in the efficiency of permitting and licensing are in the works.
"There's a component of the strategy, which is geared at moving many of the transactional and city services into an online, mobile environment," said Singh. "People don't have to come down all the way to city hall to do these things – they can do them from their desk or mobile phone." Easier access will also include opportunities for feedback to the city.
"We know that it's really hard for many people to get out to open houses, to come speak to council or to provide feedback on initiatives that they actually care a lot about," said Singh. "If the only time that they have to sit down and provide feedback is at one o'clock in the morning, we want to make sure that there's an [online] channel open for them."
"Another piece that we're really looking at is a mobile workforce for the city and how we can best use mobile technology to create more efficiency in the way that we work," Singh said, offering the example of the city's building inspectors.
Currently, they make notes at a building site and then drive back to city hall to file their reports into a system that may take a day or two. "What we're envisioning is to have that inspector in the field with a tablet.
They can file their report right there in the field, and the results can be known right away, both by the site and by the city staff at city hall who move things to the next stage." The inspector can then quickly move on to the next site, becoming much more efficient in the way that he or she does the job.
Also as part of the strategy, industry definitions and zoning bylaws are being reviewed and updated. "Right now, a software manufacturer, by definition, requires warehousing space," said Singh, of the bylaw that assumes a physical product is being produced, an outdated concept.
"The city's digital strategy is a fundamental piece of vancouver's economic action plan," said Joan Elangovan, acting CEO of the Vancouver Economic Commission. "It sends an important signal to the business community and potential investors that doing business in Vancouver is getting even better and more efficient."
"It addresses some of the key conditions impacting productivity.
Productivity is the engine of economic growth, so in that sense, it has a broad impact on the business community," she said, citing several examples – such as expanding WiFi coverage and updating the regulatory framework –of how the plan will impact overall productivity. But several parts of the strategy are specifically aimed at helping businesses to thrive.
Procurement is underway for the digital incubation program, support aimed at encouraging digital talent to stay in, or relocate to, Vancouver.
"We're looking to increase capacity in the city to support early stage companies, technology companies and social centres," said Elangovan. "Vancouver is a city of entrepreneurs and startups; it's ranked as one of the top-10 startup hubs in the world. We know that in the early stages, only a certain number of companies survive.
"This is a stage that is crucial to long-term viability to a startup or business, so that's an underlying reason for having this incubation centre. We also know that in Vancouver, there is high demand for this kind of support and [right now] we have limited supply."
Another part of the strategy aimed directly at helping businesses succeed is the Agile Proof of Concept Program. "If we look at a business, especially one with a new innovation and a new way of doing things, it's very difficult to have the first case out, the proof of concept. So [the program] is aimed at using city assets to have companies' new technologies being tested. If they can test out their technology, we want to make the infrastructure available." This will help Vancouver entrepreneurs market their innovations elsewhere.
