Open North Blog

Leading the Way in Budget Engagement in 2017

December 19, 2017

We led the way in budget engagement in 2017 with Citizen Budget. Over 100 cities from 1,000 to 1 million inhabitants in size have used the online platform to boost and broaden their budget engagement.

Open Data Standards Will Improve Public Information

December 13, 2017

As private and public bodies become digitally connected, we need data standards to allow technologies to be shared across systems and jurisdictions.

The Challenges to Inclusive, Open, and Smart Cities: Speed, Opacity, and Outsourcing

November 27, 2017

Do smart cities increase the speed and opacity of government decision making, while control over the tools and processes remain outside of government? This post examines three problematic factors: Speed, opacity, and outsourcing.

Open government: Canada's new soft power?

November 2, 2017

Canada is at its most significant juncture in its open government initiative since its inception in 2011. Having been elected to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Steering Committee and accepted the position of co-chair, Canada will helm the world’s foremost open government network for the next two years.

Introducing The State of Open Data

October 31, 2017

2018 will mark 10 years of active and growing open data initiatives. From a political perspective, 10 years might be considered a moment in time, but from a technological point of a view, a decade may represent multiple generations of innovation. In the open data context, where tech and politics meet, we hope that a decade means that open data is no longer a buzzword, but rather a powerful tool to create positive social change all over the world.

Do-It-Yourself Open Data Toolkit

October 31, 2017

Many cities want to open up their data but are not too sure where to start. To support these efforts, OpenNorth, and the Government of Canada have piloted the development of a do-it-yourself open data toolkit for municipalities.

Toronto's Open Data Master Plan and Data4Impact Report

August 28, 2017

Drawing on our strategic planning, maturity modelling, and stakeholder engagement expertise, OpenNorth is supporting the City of Toronto in developing its Open Data Master Plan, and we’re going about this in a very engaging and collaborative way.

Open Smart Cities in Canada: Situating Canadian Cities within an International Smart City Ecosystem

August 14, 2017

Smart cities, intelligent cities, sustainable cities, sentient cities, cities as platform, the next city, innovative cities, programmable cities, connected cities, and hackable cities are among the list of labels observed by the Open Smart Cities in Canada project’s Environmental-Scan (E-Scan) and Gap Analysis to describe data-driven and networked urbanism.

Open smart cities in Canada: ideals versus reality

April 1, 2017

An environmental-scan (e-scan) and gap analysis of Smart City practices and strategies at the Cities of Montreal, Ottawa, Guelph, and Edmonton disentangles the web of digital media to elucidate how these cities imagine and deploy their vision of a Smart City.

Where you can find us in coming months

March 10, 2017

A roundup of where OpenNorth worked in 2017.

Final Report: Aligning Canadian Open Data Programs with International Best Practices

January 30, 2017

In our role as Open Data Charter Stewards and in collaboration with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded research partnership, Geothink, we researched the potential benefits and challenges to Canadian provinces and municipalities in adopting the Open Data Charter.

What Could Open Data Programs Gain from Aligning with International Best Practices? Mapping open data practices in Canadian sub-national governments to the international Open Data Charter

December 2, 2016

Established in 2011, OpenNorth is Canada’s leading open data non-profit organization, committed to promoting government transparency and accountability, and public participation in democracy. In our role as Open Data Charter Stewards, and in collaboration with the research partnership, Geothink, we are researching the potential benefits and challenges to Canadian provinces and municipalities adopting the ODC.

Open Data: Can it make Canadian cities more resilient?

October 12, 2016

Worldwide, open data is helping to fight corruption, to increase government efficiency, and to grow sectors of the economy, and early research hints that it can also play an important role in making our cities more resilient.

Taking ownership of the open government action plan: Canadians need to work together

August 18, 2016

As it does every two years, the Government of Canada released its open government action plan, the third of its kind so far. And yet, for many of the millions of engaged Canadians across the country, the existence of this plan remains unknown to them.

Exploring the Social Sector’s Relationship with Data: Takeaways From Data 4 Impact

July 7, 2016

Community – it’s one of the foundational pillars of our vision for better and more open democracy.

Applied research in action: understanding the data needs of settlement organizations in Canada

June 15, 2016

When Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) approached Open North a few months ago to conduct an assessment of their open data strategy, we were thrilled to say the least. Indeed, the timing could not have been better for such a research project.

Spreading the word about Citizen Budget, our innovative online budget simulator

June 8, 2016

As always, the Open North crew has been out and about in the world getting the word out about Citizen Budget, our powerful online budget simulator. For the fourth time now, we took part in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Conference Trade Show, where Citizen Budget is always highly...

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