Celebrate Your Neighbourhood Spirit: Edmonton Community Challenge

Last July I attended an event called the Community Challenge, co-hosted by Edmonton Next Gen and the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues. Its purpose was to bring next-geners together to discuss how to improve and work with community leagues. That event was the first collaboration between the two organizations, and it was pretty successful!
Now NextGen [...]

Thoughts on Connections 2010

On three Thursday evenings in April the City of Edmonton hosted an event called Connections 2010, designed to connect residents with City staff to learn about programs, services, and projects. Organized by the Office of Great Neighbourhoods, Connections 2010 brought more than 40 City departments and programs together under one roof.
The first was held on [...]

Capital City Clean Up – 15 to Clean Challenge!

Now that the snow has melted, litter is once again visible on our streets and sidewalks. That means it’s time for a big push by Capital City Clean Up (CCCU), the City of Edmonton’s year-round litter and graffiti management program.
On Wednesday, Mayor Mandel kicked off the latest CCCU initiative, called the 15 to [...]

Edmonton’s South LRT Grand Opening

Today was the grand opening of the Southgate and Century Park LRT stations (see my previous coverage here). A joint news release issued by all three levels of government declared that “a new era in Edmonton’s transportation history has begun.” Edmonton’s LRT now extends 20.3 kilometers from Clareview Station in the northeast to Century Park [...]

Edmonton Neighbourhood Census Data

For a long time I’ve wanted to get the City of Edmonton’s neighbourhood census data in CSV format (or really any usable format other than PDF). Recently, with the help of Laura (and Sandra) at the City’s Election & Census Services department, who I met at the Open City Workshop, I finally got it. And [...]

2010 Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts

Sharon and I attended our third straight, and the 23rd annual, Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts tonight, held at the Winspear Centre. The event “celebrates some of the best artistic talents our city has to offer” and offers “sample-sized performances from some of Edmonton’s most talented artists and performers.” I’ve always enjoyed myself in [...]

How much do traffic signs cost?

I read with great interest this week about the City of Edmonton’s new residential speed reduction pilot. Speed limits have been on my radar since late last year when Patricia Grell of the Woodcroft community started her Safe Speed Limits blog. She and many others have been pushing for a reduction to 30km/h on [...]

Edmonton Tech in 2009

What another fantastic year for tech in Edmonton! I think 2009 had an excellent mix of events, product launches, company successes, and much more. Below I have tried to recap as much of it as possible. I did my first recap post like this last year – you can read it here.

Events
Again we had a [...]

Recap: Community Evening with Jim Diers

Last night Sharon and I attended the West Community Evening with Jim Diers, the second of three events taking place in Edmonton this week (the last one is tonight in the south service area). Jim is a community organizer best known as the former director of the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighbourhoods, a [...]

Recap: Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally Open House

Last night was the open house for the City’s new Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (LTEL) initiative (you can read my previous coverage here). The event was meant to provide more details to the community, and to introduce the people behind the scenes. David Faber from the Deputy City Managers Office, Kamren Farr from TEC Edmonton, [...]

Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally – Open House on November 17

As you may have heard by now, the City of Edmonton is hosting an open house on Tuesday, November 17 (on ShareEdmonton) at City Hall to present a pilot project to interested members of the local tech community. The initiative is known as Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (LTEL), and the open house follows on [...]

ENTS Grand Opening

Tonight was the grand opening of ENTS, the Edmonton New Technology Society. Located just a short walk from downtown at 10575 114 Street, ENTS is “a group of people from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada sharing a collaborative space in Edmonton to teach, learn and work on projects together.” Don’t be confused – ENTS is both a [...]

Taking Edmonton’s Technology Community to the Next Level

I’m always thinking about the technology community in Edmonton. Some very positive things have happened in recent years, and I want to see that trend continue and even accelerate. To take our tech community to the next level however, we’re going to need everyone to bring their unique strengths and abilities to the table. [...]

artsScene Edmonton Summer Party – August 20th

Back in May I attended the launch party for artsScene Edmonton – a fantastic event at Planet Ze Design Centre in Old Strathcona. I had a great time, and suggested that artsScene events could become “must attend” events for local creatives. The first test of that is coming up next week:
On August 20, we’re [...]

Collaboration & Community: Edmonton New Technology Society (ENTS)

Nearly a year ago while in Vancouver I took some time to check out WorkSpace, a shared workspace located in the historic Gastown neighbourhood. I had been reading about the concept for quite a while and after seeing one in action, I knew that I’d get use out of a collaborative workspace (they’re also known [...]