Since the early nineties, innovation has been at the forefront of Fredericton’s smart city strategies. Our ‘smart city’ journey began in 1992 when Fredericton diversified from a sleepy, little government and university town to a thriving knowledge-based economy in our first economic development strategy, Vision 2000. The City Council invested in digital infrastructure like traditional infrastructure – building a municipally-owned fibre optic network, and on the backbone, we constructed Canada’s first free wireless network, Fred-eZone.
A key recommendation of Vision 2000 was the creation of a technology and research park, known today as Knowledge Park, as well as packaging our research and technology assets as a corridor now referred to as Innovation District.
With a solid track record of building strategies to spur innovation, Fredericton’s differentiator has been its forward-thinking, entrepreneurial approach versus taking the safe, risk-adverse path. We have viewed our challenges not as problems, but as opportunities.
Today, we’re transforming and modernizing municipal government through Boost Fredericton, our living lab for civic innovation, and building a smart community that will recognize, connect and empower citizens across generations and cultures in meaningful ways.