Nanaimo's Cutting Edge IT Services Honored

 Nanaimo recognized as “Best City” 

for delivering Municipal IT Services

The City of Nanaimo has been recognized as the best Canadian city for using technology to deliver municipal services. Backbone Magazine recently rated Nanaimo as the top city that effectively adopted Information Technology to improve city services while saving taxpayers money.

This latest recognition adds to a list of notable acknowledgements dating back through the mid 1990s when the City began making its data available to the public for free. The City has also received acknowledgment for the voter and election system it created; a system that is now used by other local governments throughout the province and across Canada. 

The system created many efficiencies in the civic election process, from guarding against a voter casting more than one ballot, to producing quicker and more accurate results on voting day. Results that used to take hours are now accurately produced in minutes after polling stations close.

Positive reviews of the City’s integration of City mapping services with Google Earth affectionately crowned Nanaimo “The Capital of Google Earth”. And more recently, the City has created popular citizen facing applications such as “Public Art” and “What’s Building in my Neighbourhood”.

While the City of Nanaimo’s success in delivering municipal IT Services has taken various forms over the years, each success supports its goal of ensuring greater transparency and openness in daily operations.

“We are extremely pleased to have Nanaimo recognized as one of the best municipalities in Canada for IT Services” said City of Nanaimo Mayor, John Ruttan. “This acknowledgement confirms that we are providing outstanding service to citizens and businesses, both in terms of quality and cost”.

“This is great recognition for the innovative work of all City staff”, said Information and Technology Director, Per Kristensen. “Implementing and adopting new technology is a corporate team effort”.