News

What we heard from our local tech community

2 October 2025

We’re excited to provide an update on the recent engagement session with Kitchener’s tech community, held as part of the Digital Kitchener Strategy refresh. The session brought together innovators, entrepreneurs, and technology leaders to discuss how the city can better support digital infrastructure, business growth, and municipal innovation.

The session was interactive, with participants rotating through themed tables focused on digital infrastructure, municipal barriers, emerging technologies, collaboration, data access, and business sustainability.

Ideas were captured via sticky notes, grouped by facilitators, and prioritized through discussion and voting.

Key themes:

  • Strong interest in smarter, more effective city services through automation, real-time data, and frictionless digital platforms.
  • Calls for better access to business intelligence, economic data, and actionable analytics to support local enterprises.
  • Readiness to embrace AI for municipal innovation, including chatbots and intelligent analytics.
  • A need to continue supporting startups with mentorship programs to foster growth and collaboration.

How we’ll use the feedback:

The feedback collected will directly inform the next phase of the Digital Kitchener strategy where we’ll be looking to explore co-creating civic innovation with local talent by:

  • Collaboratively driving community digital transformation
  • Empower innovation with open data
  • Modernize resource access for local technology innovation
  • Advance municipal innovation through AI
  • City to partner with startups to support for innovation

Thank you to everyone who participated, and we look forward to the opportunities to partner, pilot and reimagine civic tech, together.