Ideas abound for how Cochrane should shape its 50-word statement in hopes of making the shortlist for the Smart Cities Challenge $50 million prize.

Town Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Dave Devana says about 35 people attended a public session, Mar. 1, and was impressed with the positive leading-edge input received.

"We are getting amazingly positive feedback," says Devana. "At the meeting, there were no negative feelings, it was just what can we do to help, how can we contribute. We already know that after the meeting some of the people that attended even met on Friday and Saturday on their own to brainstorm about what can we do to for Cochrane to get shortlisted, to be a finalist and what can we do to even win the competition."

After an initial presentation broken into main municipal topics and two sample 50-word statements were provided, a handful of roundtable discussions were held. 

"Each table was given an exercise and then they reported back to us on what their thoughts were on our challenge statement and things that we wanted to solve. They had great ideas on how we can make it Cochrane specific to solve our problems, whether it's transportation, wastewater/water, growth, transit."

People from technology-driven companies like 4iiii in town, and those from elsewhere, like Siemens and Bison Transport, were among those in attendance.

"The main focus of the people who were there was not on the technology--although they thought it was really exciting--but how we're going to use the technology to improve our lives and that was the main takeaway that we got from that meeting."

"This is where it's going now. The citizens are guiding us on the 'why' we are doing this."

At least one more public meeting will be held before the statement is finalized and in the meantime, people are welcome to share their thoughts on the town's Let's Talk Cochrane website. Devana says they are seeking the widest amount of input possible before writing the statement.

With an Apr. 24 statement submission deadline for the Canada Infrastructure incentive funding, there's only about six weeks left to come up with those 50 magical words.

"We're going to get to the working point of this very soon. Right now we are engaging the public to see if we're on the right track, which we think we are."

Cochrane has decided to go for the top prize and throws them in the competition which such larger Canadian centres as Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver/Surrey. A long list of submissions is anticipated for one prize of $5 million, two prizes of $10 million and one of $50 million.