SMART Parkland

Connectivity 

Smart Parkland believes that broadband is the next essential utility, as vital to economic growth as clean water and good roads.

Whatever the speed, the power of broadband can connect your computer, laptop or mobile device to billions of devices and users around the world,  revolutionizing how we work, play, live, educate and entertain ourselves, govern our citizens and relate to the world. 

We continue to put in the infrastructure to help create an improved network for residents and businesses. 

Parkland County Tower Location Chart

Knowledge workforce

Intelligent communities exhibit an ability to develop a workforce qualified to perform knowledge work from the factory floor to the research lab, and from the construction site to the call center or corporate headquarters.

As an intelligent community, Parkland County is striving to work closely with schools and employers to give students first-hand experience of career opportunities and develop specialized courses to prepare students for careers in the Parkland County's leading and emerging industries. 

Innovation

The broadband economy is an innovation-driven economy. Economist Robert Solow won the Nobel Prize in 1987 for proving that 80% of all economic growth comes from the development and use of technology. 

Innovation is essential to the interconnected economy of the 21st Century. Smart Parkand seeks innovation through a relationship between business, government and such institutions as universities and hospitals. Investments in innovative technology by government contribute to that culture and improve service to citizens while reducing operating costs.

Social Inclusion

Digital equality is a simple principle: everyone in the community deserves access to broadband technologies and the skills to use them. Like most principles, it is easier to understand than it is to use.

The advance of the broadband economy has worsened the exclusion of people, whether due to poverty, lack of education, prejudice, age, disability, or simply where they live.

Smart Parkland is working towards making sure everyone has access to the internet and the skills to be a part of the growing online community. 

Marketing & Advocacy

Smart Parkland is a Parkland County initiative to make sure our rural residents have the opportunity to get connected to broadband and have access to all the things you can do with the technology. Connecting community, business, education, and agriculture through technology. Smart Parkland creates awareness through a variety of successful programs and initiatives.

The American author Mark Twain got it right when he wrote: "I'm all for progress - it's change I can't stand."

It is a natural tendency to resist change. Human beings like what they know and feel comforted by it. Change involves a plunge into the unknown, which brings discomfort, anxiety and even real fear.

Smart Parkland strives to engage citizens, as well as businesses and institutions, in understanding the challenge, identifying opportunities for positive change and ultimately becoming champions of that change. 

Environment

• One of the most unique projects Smart Parkland has undertaken is the installation of a Soofa bench at Meridian Park, with plans to install another one in Constable Chelsey Robinson Park. Soofa benches are solar-powered bench that charge phones and monitors with space for three people to sit.  

• All Parkland County Transfer Stations accept e-waste. This is all electronics, including TVs, computer monitors, computers, laptops, keyboards, mouse, cables, and microwaves. 

• Improving current living standards, while maintaining the ability of future generations to do the same, is at the core of sustainability. Economic growth has always involved using more resources and the production of more waste. As we begin to push up against the limits of the ecosystem to provide resources and absorb waste, we need to find ways to continue growth - with all of its positive impacts on the community - while reducing the environmental impact of growth.