Big Data for Small Places

Jeff Green | Jun 15, 2016

At a session for municipal staff, council and representatives from the not-for-profit sector that was held at the Frontenac County offices on June 13, Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender introduced the Big Data for Small Places initiative to Frontenac County.

The initiative is based on a pilot project that took place in Lanark County, which was run by Bob Leitch and Nelson Rogers of Perth. It is designed to create focus groups of four or five people to be trained in using available statistical information to do two things: identify key factors that pertain to a specific public issue they are passionate about, and to use that data-based insight to deal with that issue or find a way to obtain funding to do so.

“As small municipalities we don't have access to the same grants as larger municipalities because we often don't know how to present our case to funders, through data-based evidence,” said Pender.

Leitch and Rogers have received a funding boost of $50,000 in seed money from the Rural Ontario Institute and have a commitment of $5,000 from at least three and as many as five eastern Ontario counties. Frontenac, Leeds and Grenville, and Lanark are about to jump on board and Hastings and Peterborough have expressed interest. They are planning to seek further funding to reach about $200,000, which will allow them to work with the local counties to identify four or five problems that need solving, and to train existing personnel how to use data to attack those problems.

“Some of those problems will be local in scope, and can be addressed with teams from within one county. Others will be regional and it will be useful to put together teams from two, three or more of the counties,” said Brian Leitch.

The process was started with a round table discussion among the 30 or so people at the event, who tried to narrow down a list of 20 or so issues of concern in Frontenac County to a list of five. The list of 20 included transportation, economic development, the impact to tourism, libraries and halls, health hubs, communal servicing and more. After a straw vote, the list was whittled down and small group discussions were set up.

While the workshop came to no ultimate conclusions about projects, CAO Pender will follow up and create working groups for the highest profile of the issues that were raised.

Participants in the project will receive 24 hours of training in the use of data and will work on specific issues in the fall and early winter, with a goal of identifying a path forward by the end of March of next year.