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Three city staff work full-time on the project, which launched internally in May 2016, and they’re supported by “an internal advisory of staff that represent every business unit in the city.”

“One of the really exciting things is building bridges across all of the silos so that a great idea doesn’t just get stuck in one place, it has a chance to cross-pollinate across the whole city,” Kelly-Frere said.

Kelly-Frere, who has a graduate degree in architecture and previously worked at Telus Spark as an exhibit developer, said innovation should be celebrated.

“The same thing we call play in kids, which is experimenting, paying attention to the world around you, trying, failing, learning from that failure … for some reason, we have to call that innovation in adults,” he said.

When it goes live next week, the online portal will be a place where citizens can crowdsource ideas related to municipal issues, comment, up or down vote submissions and stay in touch with city staff.

Kelly-Frere said idea submitters will be invited to any testing or development sessions concerning their idea and, “if you share your idea with the city, you retain ownership of it, which is a pretty big change for the city.”

Turning to the public to get input isn’t a new concept, said Harry Hiller, an urban sociologist at the University of Calgary, who noted cities across North America are increasingly using technology for public engagement.

Hiller said while it feels “very welcoming” when a city strives to be open and include citizens, it remains to be seen if ideas submitted by citizens will go anywhere under the new Calgary initiative.