Using Volunteer Geographic Information (VGI) from Citizen Engagement to Improve Organizational Operations

Karen Stewart, GISP
Esri Canada
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Daren Sears
Strathcona County
Sherwood Park, AB, Canada

Mobile communications are enabling a more effective two way communications channel between residents and organizations.  This new technical workflow is enabling real civic action to create smarter cities, empowering citizens and optimizing government processes.  These new platforms and solutions leverage cloud and mobile technologies to provide solutions that integrates back office government workflows to citizens via their mobile devices, whether iPhone, Blackberry, Android or WP7. The optimization of input channels and work-flow, using VGI data saves municipalities time money and improves transparency.

In this session, we will explain and demonstrate how customers like Strathcona County, Alberta, Canada deploy these real-time field collaboration tools and link them to back end asset management & CRM solutions to create efficiencies in their government processes. The intent is to demonstrate how input from citizens can help create efficiencies if managed appropriately. These Apps need to work with the back office or a citizen data silo is created that really cannot be consumed into anything useful.

Strathcona County recognized this and decided to utilize staff to help define scope before rolling out their VGI application to citizens.