MISA/ASIM Canada has formed new groups to facilitate national projects of benefit to municipal IT departments, while stepping up activities with other levels of government in Canada and with international organizations.

President Kathryn Bulko reports that a new special-interest group has been created for large municipalities. With representatives from Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and several other cities, the group had its first teleconference July 19 and has since had further discussions toward providing mutual assistance with major IT projects.

The Large Municipalities Special Interest Group is also working to compile and organize a knowledge base of technological information that can be shared with all municipalities within the MISA/ASIM Canada community.

The group’s chair, Rob Meikle of the City of Brampton, Ontario, can be reached at rob.meikle@brampton.ca.

Another new group has been formed to assist vendors who want to be involved with MISA/ASIM Canada member chapters on a national basis.

About three dozen companies are members of more than one chapter. The National Vendor Member Program Working Group, with volunteers from MISA BC, MISA Prairies and MISA Ontario, is developing proposals to enable vendors to consolidate and add value to their fees for memberships and conferences without disrupting their current relationships with chapters.

For information about the working group please contact Roy Wiseman, executive director of MISA/ASIM Canada, at roy.wiseman@rogers.com.

In other activities:

• As a member organization in the Public Sector CIO Council (PSCIOC), MISA/ASIM Canada is helping to drive efforts to simplify IT procurement policies and procedures. Bulko, who is manager of client relationship management in the I&T Division of the City of Toronto, is also chair of the PSCIOC IT Procurement Working Group. A report she prepared was presented in September to a PSCIOC meeting in Regina, outlining plans to work with the CIO of Canada, Corinne Charette, and the Information Technology Association of Canada to develop a framework for common procurement objectives that can be tested in pilot projects.
• MISA/ASIM Canada wants to promote the adoption of open data by municipalities. A new working group has been formed by the Joint Councils (comprising the PSCIOC and the Public Sector Service Delivery Council) to promote open data, and MISA/ASIM Canada will be seeking municipal volunteers to participate in this inter-jurisdictional group.
• Open data is also of wide interest to municipalities internationally. A project to link European and North American open-data efforts is being organized by LOLA (Linked Organisation of Local Authority ICT Societies), with participation and support from MISA/ASIM Canada.