The City’s Digital Strategy sets out how the council will maintain a focus on people and community outcomes during a time of continued technological change, and leverage the benefits presented by technological innovation.
The Digital Strategy has six priorities:
1. Champion digital inclusion and lifelong learning
We create programs to encourage skilled, digitally literate communities for everyone to access and enjoy the benefits of digital technology.
2. Create people-centred digital programs and services
We design our programs and services around the people who use them to provide a better experience of dealing with the City. This also means ensuring people can access our online services any time from any device.
3. Transform how we engage with all our communities
We use technology to have a more open conversation with our community that leads to greater community participation in decision-making processes.
4. Support businesses to build digital skills, knowledge and infrastructure
We support our local economy to be more resilient and enhance Sydney's reputation as a collaborative, connected and innovative city to attract talented people into our local workforce.
5. Actively participate in urban renewal of Sydney, advocating for, and where appropriate providing, smart infrastructure needed to ensure Sydney's global competitiveness.
We use our influence to partner with others to get these networks and infrastructure in place.
6. Innovate ethically in the information marketplace.
We creatively use data to improve the performance and operation of our systems and infrastructure, while meeting privacy expectations, and encourage understanding of security issues.
Smart City Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan
Building on the Digital Strategy, the City of Sydney is developing a Smart City Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan. It recognises that a smart city is one that harnesses data and technology and combines this with human capital to deliver the priority outcomes identified by the community.
The framework will be based around five strategic pathways:
- A city supporting connected, empowered communities
- A city fuelling economic competitiveness and attracting global talent
- A city future-proofing its environment and bolstering resilience
- A city cultivating vibrant & liveable places
- A city providing intelligent, efficient service delivery
Community Engagement
The City was one of the first councils to establish an online consultation hub to ensure consultation was supported with effective digital engagement.
Through the “Sydney Your Say” engagement platform, the community can contribute to Council decision making across a wide variety of areas from planning, new facilities, arts and culture, community wellbeing, and strategy development
The platform was established as a website in 2011 and was widely recognised by industry peers as a leading example of online participatory consultation. The City continues to develop the platform utilising new methods and technologies such as smart phone applications, virtual reality, and social media to provide access for as large a section of the community as possible.
Open Data Platform
The City of Sydney embraces the principle of “open by default” and publishes open data sets on its open data platform under the creative commons licensing model. The platform provides datasets relating to Transport and Access, Public Domain, Community, Planning, Cultural, Regulatory, Economic, and Environmental.
Processes are established that ensure that published datasets are of sufficient quality, do not contain sensitive information, and are under the custodianship the City. As well as providing data in tabular form (excel and csv), the platform provides API access to allow external developers to develop their own apps.
Links
Digital Strategy
https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/vision/sustainable-sydney-2030/digital-city
Sydney Your Say
https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/council/your-say
Open Data Platform