As Canada moves toward developing smart cities, the role of the CIO expands. One thing is already clear though: The CIO cannot succeed alone because it takes a culture of support to reinforce security and safety.
By Belinda Jones
Canada is preparing for the reality of smart cities. In fact, some cities are already implementing the technologies, but changing organisations, employee and public viewpoints, and the country's culture to promote technology innovation and participation are as at least as important as the technology itself. Sophisticated, interconnected technologies need to be secure to prevent hacking and other data corrupting and stealing.
However, the most secure technologies are only as safe and secure as the people implementing, managing, and ultimately utilizing the systems. Every system needs humans to ensure the safety and security controls are in place and working properly, but the challenge is much deeper. Chief information officers (CIOs) are responsible for far more than minimizing technology risks. Whether implementing a smart city plan or a single new technology, the CIO must develop inclusive processes and create an organisational culture that drives innovation and desired environmental, social, and governmental services benefits.
It does not take much imagination to understand the level of complexity involved in enabling a smart city. In the past, the CIO has not always had a seat at the executive table and has mostly been responsible for implementing information technology, ensuring data is accurate, making data available to the organisation for decision-making, and other typical duties of a unit leader like budgeting and overseeing staff projects.
As technology became central to almost everything an organisation does, the role of the CIO has grown significantly. The CIO's expanded role requires him or her to consider financial and security implications of technologies across the organisation; promote innovation; develop long-term strategies; develop risk management plans; and keep the organisation ahead of the technology security curve.
Achieving success in all these areas requires an organisational culture in which innovation, safety and security are embedded. The culture influences the assumptions people make about their work environment and drives behaviours. Culture consists of values, ethics, attitude and behaviours.
The CIO’s expanded role includes work across functions and with executives and unit heads to create an organisational culture that encourages people to perform to the highest safety and security levels in order to maintain the integrity of the technologies.
Technology Touching Lives
This is an enormous responsibility in a smart city because of the multiple access points into the system. Critical public systems like electrical grids, power plants, water treatment plants, and transportation systems attract hackers, and this is not an imagined threat either.
In 2016, Public Safety Canada reported that Canada's critical infrastructures were attacked by groups using Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) technology 25 times over a two-month period. APT is malware that attempts to enter a software system through a back door, often lying dormant for a long time period so it is not discovered while it collects data. In these instances, the threats were all found to have come from the information and communications technologies (ICT) sector that operates critical public infrastructures.
Utilizing technology to develop smart cities is either in the planning stage in cities across Canada or in the process of being implemented.
For example, Montréal is implementing a strategic plan to become a smart city. In the smart city, people's lives are touched by technology in numerous ways – public services, public/private utilities, infrastructure, social services, and government operations. The city began by analyzing massive amounts of data generated by existing systems and citizen surveys, and by consulting with hundreds of stakeholders. The five target areas of activity are direct services to citizens, urban mobility, the democratic process, quality of life, and economic development.
Another leader in smart city development is Martin Boyer, vice president and CIO for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), who is responsible for developing a “smart airport.” Toronto Pearson airport is Canada's largest airport and a global hub, serving 44.3 million passengers in 2016. Boyer's responsibilities as an executive and CIO reflect the country's focus on utilizing technology to improve lives and promote economic activity. In 2016, it was recognized that the Airport Employment Zone (AEZ) is key to growing the regional economy, but the zone spans several jurisdictions, making transportation planning difficult. According to the GTAA 2016 Annual Report, every day more than 1 million auto trips to and from the AEZ are taken.
Technology will be critical to developing regional connectivity that reduces congestion and lowers GHG emissions. Throughout the annual report, it is made clear that the ability to track data and utilize new technologies will enable Toronto Pearson to manage projected continued growth. With strategic planning and implementation, the AEZ will become a smart zone with an intermodal hub connecting people from throughout the region in more efficient and productive ways and generating data useful for improving the wider region's traffic flows to stimulate economic activity.
Every system is being evaluated to determine how it can be made “smarter” in order to better manage the projected growth. For example, five legacy baggage systems were converted to one integrated solution that includes security screening. In the next phase, infrastructure improvements are combined with human-centric process design.
Empowering Diverse People
Initially, new technologies were implemented in a piecemeal approach and usually without the inclusion of the people most impacted by the technology – its residents. Community engagement before, not after, technologies are implemented, is important to creating a secure and cohesive set of technologies that deliver desired outcomes.
To engage residents, the CIO must now focus on empowering people through collaboration. When diverse people have a stake in the process and outcomes, they are more likely to develop a community culture of safety and security, and to contribute to innovate ideas for addressing real-world issues like energy efficiency, mobility, and community services.
"The CIO has arrived at the executive table by realizing that digital transformation moves at the speed of security, culture, and leadership, not at the speed of technology," IT World Canada CIO Jim Love said.
This succinctly describes the ultimate challenge of the CIO, whether implementing a new technology or developing a smart city.