Local IT Company to Develop New Lost-and-Found System for Edmonton Transit

February 04, 2010

Lost your iPod on the bus? An Edmonton company called Hybrid Forge has been chosen to improve the way the city gets it back to you, through a pilot project that supports local technology companies.

“This is a real win-win,” said David Faber, the City's Branch Manager of Strategic Management. “The City gets access to Edmonton expertise that’s among the best in the world, we support local businesses, and we’ll get access to new technologies, products and ideas that in some cases haven’t even been thought of yet.”

The pilot, known as Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally (LTEL), also benefits local technology businesses as they develop business solutions that could lead to broader use, and learn how to engage with large and complex buyers like the City.

“This is an excellent opportunity for us, and we are excited about forging relationships with the City of Edmonton and TEC Edmonton,” says Geoff Kliza, President of Hybrid Forge. “Our goal is to integrate business systems with emerging web trends such as social networking to provide a closer relationship between our clients and their customers.”

The LTEL pilot project attracted 14 applications from Edmonton's vibrant IT community. A review panel comprised of City business and IT staff and TEC Edmonton business analysts narrowed the field down to six finalists in early January 2010. All of the finalists presented their proposed solutions to the review panel on January 28, 2010.

“In this instance, the LTEL approach produced an innovative, locally-developed IT solution to a specific technical challenge the City was facing,” added Faber. “I'm optimistic that this approach, once finalized, can be used to tackle a wide range of complex challenges.”
 
The other finalists were Aldata, Aurora Bar Code, Damaag, Stage 2 and XEA Services.

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