The Greater Vancouver Region, home to 2.5 million well connected people, has the opportunity to embrace the tidal wave that is sweeping the planet known as Smart Cities. For the past decade or so, Vancouver has ambitiously positioned itself to be the greenest city on Earth, helping to reduce the metropolitan's impact on the environment - a noble goal. As new technologies, systems, and innovations enter the market making life more convenient and efficient, many of the existing smart city solutions offer the opportunity to produce a green dividend. For example, one of the many challenges large cities face is that of congestion. Thousands of cars sit idling unnecessarily for hours, spewing toxic exhaust into the air. In Moscow, smart cities solutions were deployed to help mitigate some of the worst congestions problems on the planet resulting in far less idle time for cars and less pollution in the atmosphere.

As one of the most livable, and green cities on the planet, Vancouver is at a crossroads of where to go next. Continue down a path of green-ification where it is proven to be a challenge engaging corporate actors, or to pursue a new avenue of implementing smart systems that will ultimately provide the smart dividend Vancouver seeks.