What Mayor Jeff Genung has been musing about lately has now become official.

The town is thinking big and going for the top prize of $50 million from the federal Smart Cities Challenge.

Genung made it official this morning, Feb. 21, at his state of the town address to members of the Cochrane and District Chamber of Commerce and, says he believes the town can only gain by shooting for the moon. He previously told CochraneNow.com of his musings in an interview late last week and has now pulled the trigger.

Genung believes the town will be implementing the strategy in the future whether they win or lose the prize, so why not put it all on the line and gain a little attention along the way.

"By shooting for the $50 million we may get more attention than if we even won the $5 million," said Genung.

The attention the town seeks is from tech startup businesses looking for a home and while he believes we're already on the map in Alberta it could open the door for international interest. 

"The need now is for more tech businesses," he told the crowd this morning."They will offset residential and commercial taxes and bring a clean industry to our community with high paying jobs."

He says shooting for the sky is through the same lens as the smart cities initiative and we shouldn't fear to compete with larger centres. To him, it begs the question, "Why not?"

"Will we just not apply for that because we'll be competing with Toronto or we'll be competing with Vancouver, or Edmonton or Calgary. Does that mean that we don't have what it takes to compete at that level? I would say we probably have those (tech) minds in our community already. If we pull this off it would be the ultimate underdog upset."

"Even to be shortlisted and be rubbing shoulders with Toronto and Vancouver would be a win. They would all be looking at us and saying, 'You're 27,000 people and you guys are in the same arena as we are?' We'd be, like, 'Yup, get ready'."

During his presentation this morning he continued to explore the idea of creating a tech startup company incubator in the community and compared it to an affordable housing strategy. When a company begins to show success, they would move out of the location and move on to larger premises, hopefully within Cochrane. He says he research shows a company that starts here would likely stay here.

"Part of it is an attracting more business, more commercial, more business parks in the community so new developments coming forward will have an opportunity to have a tech component to it with fibre running through it."

Genung is a little surprised he didn't receive any pushback from his trip to the massive tech show in Las Vegas, NV in early January with town CAO Dave Devana. He's impressed with the positive vibes created in the community by the high tech push.

"It's been something positive for people to talk about. It's not stuck in traffic, it's not winter and cold, it's not our snow removal. It's got people thinking about things in a positive way. How can we be better? How can we be more efficient? By going for this grant we're actually competing."

He has been receiving steady feedback from the community and offers of help.

Residents do have a chance to get involved with the development of the town's submission next week. A public engagement session is being Mar. 1 at 7 p.m. at the Cochrane Alliance Church. There will also be an opportunity to contribute online on at LetsTalkCochrane.ca between Mar. 2 and Mar. 13.

The town is required to submit a 50-word Smart City statement by Apr. 24. CAO Devana has previously indicated he wants it to be ready by late March. Should it be one of the successful finalists, it would be provided $250,000 to develop their proposal and business case.