Lunar
New Year
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Photos by Analyn Cuarto

Coquitlam gets efficient

> City focuses on streamlining processes

Colten Kamlade
Staff Reporter

 

he City of Coquitlam has been

making an effort to become more
efficient by streamlining and improving
many of their services and processes.

According to the 2017 Final
Progress Report and 2018 Work Plan
from the Staff Committee on Business
Improvements and Customer Service, the
initiative began in 2010, when the Staff
Committee on Business Improvements
and Customer Service was created to
better devise user-friendly practices.

“The Committee’s objective is

Hack-a-thon to be held

to formalize the work that many
departments do to improve the delivery
of their programs and services and
to establish a City-wide approach to
finding efficiencies and improving
customer service,” the report states.
So far, the committee has completed

298 of their goals. Though none of these
accomplishments affect students directly,
Graham Stuart, corporate planning
manager for the City of Coquitlam,
said in an email interview with the
Other Press that students will certainly
benefit from the committee’s efforts.

“In terms of the impact on students,
these initiatives look to improve
service to our clients as well as our

> New West Innovation Week

Colten Kamlade
Staff Reporter

 

N= Westminster is putting on their
second annual hack-a-thon, which is
being hosted as part of Innovation Week.

The event is being held at the New
Westminster campus of Douglas College.
It will take place on February 25 and
26. Anyone is welcome to create their
own teams and join in on the fun.

In an email interview with the
Other Press, Jen Arbo, Innovation
New West co-ordinator, described
the concept of a hack-a-thon.

“The idea of a hack-a-thon is to come
together with a short timeframe, and use
skills and tools to build a functioning
app or program that solves some sort of
identified problem,” she said. “Often,
hack-a-thons have themes and generally

people work in teams. Hack-a-thons are
definitely a fun and creative way to hone
skills and solve problems. Our hack-a-
thon focuses on using open data and this
year we have themed it around finding
solutions to transportation issues such
as safety and accessibility, congestion,
and seamless mobility and planning.”
The results of last year’s hack-a-thon
were positive and produced a wide variety
of innovative work, according to Arbo.
“Last year we didn't have a theme,
so hackers were free to let the data
guide them. We had projects that
were tourism-focused and emergency
planning-focused, as well as some
that were simply presenting open
data in a nicer way,” she said.
These apps were often community-
focused or created with the City
of New Westminster in mind.

internal services,” he said. “They affect
students in that students invariably
use our services. For example, if they
register for recreation programs.”

Registration is being worked on
alongside improvements to technology.
Stuart described how these components
are being worked on together.

“Part of the mandate of the program
is to review current practices regarding
technology,” he said. “Through this
process, our team in Parks, Recreation,
and Culture looked at ways to improve
our online registration system and the
team in Finance worked to facilitate
better use of payment options at our
various service windows at City Hall”

The committee is not just focussed
on efficiency, however. The 2017 Final
Progress Report and 2018 Work Plan
from the Staff Committee on Business
Improvements and Customer Service
also made environmentally conscious
recommendations. The Stop-Doing List
includes some of these ecologically-
minded suggestions, such as reducing
waste by eliminating single-use disposable
vinyl pull-up banners, stopping the
distribution of individual job posters to
facilities, and replacing 1,200 pages of
printed payroll reports with exception
reporting and Excel training.

at Douglas College

“Some examples were an app that
game-ified visiting City monuments
and locations, one that was focused on

connecting people in need of having their

sidewalk shovelled during snowfall, an
app that integrated with mapping data
to show an inventory and ranking of all
New Westminster drinking fountains,
and another one that that focused on
school catchments and school data...
it was fascinated what people came up
with in only two days,” Arbo said.
Awards will be presented to the
winning teams this year. TerraTap

Technologies, Douglas College, TransLink,

and Amazon are all sponsoring the
event. The first place award is $750,
along with an aim mentor package prize
from TerraTap Technologies, valued

at $4,000. The second place award is
$350, the third place award is $250. The

 

Te payee tr
Week 2018

Image via @innovatenw on Twitter

award for the best presentation is $150.
The aim package includes four
private mentor sessions with TerraTap’s
CEO and CTO to help them take their
hack-a-thon prototype to the next level.