Tackling a turnaround through tech
Mount Pearl looking to Smart Cities Challenge to help diversify and solve financial, demographic challenges
In an effort to continue building on its reputation of being a progressive municipality, the City of Mount Pearl is looking to technology.
On Wednesday, Mayer Dave Aker announced the city’s intention to enter the Smart Cities Challenge (SCC), a national competition from Infrastructure Canada that encourages communities to use innovation, data and connected technology to improve the lives of residents.
There are up to $75 million in federal government prize winnings to be awarded to the four winning applications: one prize of up to $50 million for a community of any size, two prizes of up to $10 million for communities with populations under 500,000; and one prize of up to $5 million for a community with fewer than 30,000 people. Mount Pearl would be eligible for all four. “Not only is tech a way of diversifying your business and becoming more sustainable, but it’s also a way of making you a lot more progressive and solves some of your financial and demographic challenges that we have in Mount Pearl,” Aker told reporters after a Mount Pearl-paradise Chamber of Commerce mayor’s luncheon.
Mount Pearl’s challenges are similar to those faced in other municipalities and the province as a whole: an aging population, stalled residential growth rates and out-migration.
To tackle these issues, Mount Pearl’s SCC initiative, dubbed A1next — a play on the city’s predominant A1N postal code — aims to create a figurative technology sandbox to attract and retain tech companies and the next generation of tech leaders and employees.
“By providing the seed for that it becomes the catalyst for not only providing solutions to some of the problems we may have within the city of Mount Pearl or within the region, it also provides a catalyst for continuing to brand the city as being progressive, and people who love technology, the younger people, they’re going to want to stay and live here,” Aker said.
It also calls for the creation of an incubator, possibly akin to the Genesis Centre in St. John’s.
“Then you can attract the young entrepreneurs, then you can attract those people who want to develop the emerging technologies, then, as a city providing that base, we can tap into that, and that’s the return that comes back to us,” says Aker, noting it also creates an avenue for partnerships that will help the city solve other issues around technology deficiencies.
By 2023, they hope to reduce the median age from 44.5 to 43.5, increase the population by five per cent, and double the number of technology-based companies operating in Mount Pearl to 16. Aker says there are eight at present.
But Aker stresses that the technology diversification push goes beyond a five-year plan and is intended to set Mount Pearl up for the next few decades.
“This initiative is pulling together our residents across many ages, industries and interests in a common pursuit, one that will position our city well into the future.”
Terry Hussey, CEO of soonto-be Mount Pearl-based Vigilante Management, applauded the city’s efforts in taking the first step toward making the region a technology hub and tackling the issues that accompany a challenging economic climate.
“Everybody talks about diversification, but this is the first genuinely solid idea that I’ve heard in the last 10 years around here that can actually make a difference,” says Hussey. “If they do this and follow through on it, I think this will transform the region.”
Asked if Mount Pearl has the capacity to support the growth that’s being aimed at, Chris Dillon, Triware Technologies director of business development, says existing capacity is irrelevant. “Capacity can be gained, it can be built,” says Dillon. “We have a young population here that is dying to be part of that capacity. The problem is they’re leaving, so we need to find a way to effectively keep them here and give them the tools that will allow them to grow here and build more families, solve more problems and create more business, more wealth and more opportunity.”
Hussey said it won’t happen overnight, but starting now will be key to success in 20 years. “In the first few years you’re opening doors for young men and women to try and learn new technology skills and apply them in a way to do things that they think they’ll want to be a part of.”
Initial applications are due by April 24 and if Mount Pearl is successful, it will be eligible to receive up to $250,000 available to finalists to develop a final proposal and business plan. Winners are expected to be announced next spring.
In the event Mount Pearl doesn’t win the big prize or even become a finalist, Aker says city council is “very supportive of continuing with that agenda.”
“The business plan would still have to be put in place. That’s why it’s really important that at this phase we get a strong application in, we get a favourable response from the federal government. “Where we go from there, I guess we’ll know later in the summer as the application progresses.”
Until April 11, residents are encouraged to provide input on how to make Mount Pearl a smart city and learn how they can become involved online at A1next.ca.