Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Grande Prairie Earns Second GTEC Award

The City’s Municipal Wireless Public Safety Team was awarded a Gold Medal at Canada’s Government Technology Gala in Ottawa, on October 5 for the nomination of a wireless pre-plan project.

Government Technology Exhibition and Conference (GTEC) is a national event held by the Canadian Government’s Technology Department to encourage public sector Information Technology (IT) personnel to reach for new heights and promote new initiatives throughout the country.

Grande Prairie received the award for the development of a partnership between the Information Technology Services, Geographic Information Systems, Fire Department and Red Mobile Consulting to provide wireless systems access to fire trucks. This innovative technology provides pre-plan details such as site lay-out and location display using a broad band wireless network to allow the information to be viewed directly by firefighters while on route to the crisis.

While the technology used has been available to emergency services for sometime, the project worked to combine all the components into a unified and integrated tool that could be used wirelessly on site to provide the crucial information directly to those who depend on it.

“I am delighted that this initiative has garnered such a prestigious award,” says Mayor Dwight Logan. “The ingenuity of this project has greatly enhanced public safety.”

This is the second Gold Medal that Grande Prairie received at a GTEC event. The first Medal, received in 2006, was for the implementation of the Muniportal online service.