Alistair Croll in conversation with Melissa Bridges and Kord Davis. All opinions expressed in these episodes are personal and do not reflect the opinions of the organizations for which our guests work. For over 10 years, Melissa Bridges worked for Little Rock, Arkansas. From a start in network security, she eventually became the city’s performance …

Continue reading “FWDThinking Episode 24: Design and data for government innovation”

Alistair Croll in conversation with the 2021 IDeA competition winners. Each year, the Innovative Designs for Accessibility (IDeA) student competition challenges university students across Canada to use their creativity to develop innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions to accessibility barriers for people with disabilities.The objectives of the program are: To contribute to the creation of a culture of …

Continue reading “FWDThinking Episode 23: Meet the IDeA competition winners”

Alistair Croll in conversation with David Brin, author of The Transparent Society. In 2020, the British Security Industry Association estimated that there were between 4 and 5.9 million security cameras in the country—roughly one for every thirteen people. And it doesn’t stop at cameras: From gunshot locators, to recording devices, to motion sensors, our world …

Continue reading “FWDThinking Episode 22: If Privacy is a myth, what should we do about it?”

Alistair Croll in conversation with Public Digital’s Emma Gawen and James Stewart. All opinions expressed in these episodes are personal and do not reflect the opinions of the organizations for which our guests work. The world’s governments are the biggest buyers of information technology in the world. And unlike the private sector, where code is …

Continue reading “FWDThinking Episode 21: Public Digital and open source in government”

A conversation with Google Cloud’s Patricia Florissi about the digital dichotomies of the decade and the role of government. Technology is a series of tradeoffs. Blockchain gives us permanence in a digital world—at a large energy cost. Cloud computing gives us on-demand capacity—as long as we share it with others. And algorithms can help us …

Continue reading “Industry Innovations with Google Cloud”

Alistair Croll in conversation with Lane Becker, author of Get Lucky: How to Put Planned Serendipity to Work For You and Your Business. All opinions expressed in these episodes are personal and do not reflect the opinions of the organizations for which our guests work. Why do some organizations thrive, while others slumber? Are they …

Continue reading “CGI Presents FWDThinking Episode 20”

Alistair Croll in conversation with Technation’s Angela Mondou. All opinions expressed in these episodes are personal and do not reflect the opinions of the organizations for which our guests work. Technation—formerly ITAC—represents Canada’s private sector. We sat down with Angela Mondou, Technation’s president and CEO, to recap a tumultuous year and understand what her experiences …

Continue reading “FWDThinking Episode 19: The rise of open source technology within government”

A conversation with Microsoft Canada’s John Weigelt and Natural Resources Canada’s Vik Pant. The rapid pace of innovation has given us a world yesterday’s sci-fi authors could scarcely predict: The sum of human knowledge in our pockets; instant video communication around the world, basically for free; robots and algorithms taking on work that was once …

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Alistair Croll in conversation with Sam Roberts, Natalia Domagala, and Gosia Loj from the DN. All opinions expressed in these episodes are personal and do not reflect the opinions of the organizations for which our guests work. In 2020, Canada hosted the Digital Nations, a coalition of 10 progressive governments who share best practices and …

Continue reading “FWDThinking Episode 18: Catching up with the Digital Nations”

A conversation with AWS’ Coral Kennett. Cloud computing unlocked digital experimentation. That sounds like a broad statement, but the advent of on-demand, pay-what-you-use computing resources fundamentally altered how we buy and use information technology. Instead of applying for a budget for servers, waiting for them to arrive, installing them, we can now spin up computing …

Continue reading “Industry Innovations: Experimenting in public with AWS”