businesschief.com 179CITY OF HAMILTON
“ We’ve gone from,
historically, a mostly
manufacturing-
based economy to
a mix of technology,
life sciences, creative
industries, goods
movement, agribusiness
and food processing,
tourism and advanced
manufacturing”CYRUS TEHRANI
CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER,
CITY OF HAMILTONoperating hardware. “We have a large
footprint of buildings and infrastructure
within the city – over 200 facilities that
are connected across our infrastructure,
whether that be wired or wireless. All of
our public buildings are generally wifi-
enabled, including recreation centers,
senior centers, pools, arenas, libraries
and civic buildings, where citizens would
go to interact with citizen services. Cisco
provides that backbone core network
infrastructure for the city.”
There is a lot of innovation also occurring
in the city including the McMaster Innovation
Park. “It's under development and continues
to grow, but in terms of square footage, it
will be one of the largest of its kind in North
America,” says Tehrani. The idea behind the
park is in converting research projects into
commercialisation. “It will have conference
space, hotel space, and room for a broad
mix of startups, SMBs and more established
companies. It's literally an entire city block.”
That’s very much in line with the city’s
vision for the future, having historically
been an industrial steel town. “Hamilton has
really diversified its economy,” says Tehrani.
“We've gone from, historically, a mostly
heavy manufacturing-based economy to
a mix of technology, life sciences, creative
industries, goods movement, agribusiness
and food processing, tourism and advanced
manufacturing .” Hamilton has duly been
recognised as among the Top seven Intelligent
Communities of 2020 by the Intelligent
Community Forum. “That looks at several
economic domains such as connectivity,
work and innovation as well as social
and cultural growth such as engagement,
inclusion and sustainability. It’s with the idea
of moving from a view of ‘smart’ cities, which
might be a little bit more focused on the
technology side of things, to a more holistic