Top 7 was a team effort!
PHEW! We made it! It was quite the process. While it was certainly a shot in the arm to see Ottawa chosen as one of the Smart21 by the Intelligent Community Forum it did instil a bit of fear in me because the next round of applications for Top7 was apparently the hardest part – the really “detailed” and comprehensive part. After we sorted through all the categories, assigned responsibility for sourcing data and information and made our shopping list of best projects in town we had to get to work and prove it! The deadline for the application was New Year’s eve but with vacations on the calendar and everyone thinking of Santa and sugarplums we opted to get it in EARLY! Great.
Thanks to the great people at the City who knew where to get the most current and relevant information re: connectivity and city initiatives and all the other companies in town who are charging ahead with innovative partnerships and programs that help create skilled talent and strive to see them employed in knowledge-based jobs we were able to put together a really impressive proposal.
So, now we’re Top7, awaiting the arrival of representatives from the selection committee for a two day tour of our great city before the final announcement of the Intelligent Community of the Year in New York City in May.
Just in case you don’t know how many super projects are on the go here’s a rundown of the projects we chose to highlight – there were many more that didn’t make the cut (we were limited to 25 pages)… Ottawa’s Rural Broadband Project, Abbott Point of Care’s Microelectronics Apprenticeship Program, Algonquin’s Game Development Program, Carleton’s VSIM lab, Digital Inclusion programs at the Ottawa Public Libraries, OCRI’s Entrepreneurship Centre satellite kiosks, Special Education Allocation of laptops to students with Learning Difficulties at Ottawa Carleton District School Board, Lead to Win, City of Ottawa’s 3-1-1 Contact Centre, BizPal, Algonquin’s Virtual College, TalentBridge, High School Technology Program, Passport to Prosperity, Focus on IT (FIT), Wesley Clover’s Affiliate Program and Winning Innovative Networks for Schools (WINS). Like ICF said in their summary, there are almost too many programs in place to list them all! If your favourite project wasn’t on the list – let me know so we can consider it for the next time.
Regardless of the outcome of the May announcement we should all be really proud!
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