The Open City Network, a group of urban-technology companies, hopes to collaborate with policymakers to establish clearer rules and best practices in data collection. The organization’s board will include Miovision Technologies CEO Kurtis McBride—who is also on Waterfront Toronto’s Digital Strategy Advisory Panel—as well as Alex Miller, president of Esri Canada; Hongwei Liu, CEO of Mappedin; and Mike Branch, vice-president of data and analytics at Geotab. (Globe and Mail)

Talking point: McBride has been an outspoken critic of the Sidewalk Toronto project; this group intends to confront some of the challenges introduced by the widely-publicized development. In June 2018, McBride told The Logic that he was surprised that, halfway through the planning process, there weren’t more answers to outstanding questions—such as what type of infrastructure will be built and what the business model around that infrastructure will be—surrounding the project. He also noted that he had met with Sidewalk Labs on more than one occasion. In February, The Logic reported that Mattamy Homes was quietly shopping around an alternative proposal for Toronto’s Quayside neighbourhood, which included an all-Canadian technology component involving Miovision, ThoughtWire and Sightline Innovations. McBride will be speaking at Waterfront Toronto’s Civic Labs meeting on Tuesday, giving an “expert briefing” entitled “Smart City Data as an Important Public Resource.”