I work with many cities, and at Oracle right now I’m running a program for Smart Cities. There’s been a resurgence of interest from cities on investing in smarter technologies, especially with the advent of cloud and the fact that we have access to data, and we can actually use the data and run processes, and the cost of using the data has come down. It’s really created an inertia where a lot of cities are investing in this space, and Montreal luckily, was selected for a Smart Cities challenge grand prize. They won $50 million dollars in May from the Government of Canada, which will really enable some of these products to take life here in Montreal.

But I work with other cities as well. I work with Toronto. I work with San Jose. I work with Albuquerque, with Atlanta, in New York and others. This whole movement is great, because what it’s all about is creating a better place for citizens who love, how to use technology to make a life easier.

One example is transportation. How do we move around the city easier? Instead of always taking the bus, we have great transit systems in Montreal but sometimes it’s not convenient. How do we tie together all the different components to create that experience that moves us from where we wanna go to, where we wanna get to?

So those are the kinda things that technology brings and I think the other big thing is artificial intelligence. I mean the fact that we have a thriving ecosystem here in Montreal, that really helps us bring these capabilities to market, to really help automation. Cities are strapped for cash. They never have enough money. They’re always looking for ways of becoming more effective, and I think some of these technologies have great promises to help cities deliver more on their mission to make cities more livable. It’s all about creating an environment where citizens can live, work, and play, and make Montreal their home.