Imagine a city which innovation is not for the sole purpose of generating revenue. A city which industry leaders, enthusiasts and citizens gather once every couple of months for a weekend for social innovation, a weekend to produce elegant, innovative and useful solutions through collaboration. Solutions which are created for citizens of that City, apps like eatsure.ca and NextStop. Apps with the sole purpose to engage citizens, foster innovation, and advance the community.

This idea has been sparked from various brainstorming sessions, discussions and talks that I have listened too, and the idea that capitalism is very powerful and simple, but the market does not serve the people of the planet.

So what am I really talking about here? I am talking about businesses, freelancers, enthusiasts and most importantly – citizens, getting together to meet, collaborate and have a weekend of social innovation for the city. Some will say it is already being done, and yes it probably is to some degree.

But I am not just talking about your city’s next “Hackfest” or discussions at an event like ChangeCamp. Three to four days in which citizens are engaged, businesses and freelancers implement possible solutions and a closing of thoughts and feedback by the citizens. Your city’s next VanTrash may be a result of this type of collaboration instead of just being bullet points on paper at the end of the day.

For something like this too be done, I believe that municipalities need to become more transparent and willing to share their data, whether or not they have an open data policy. Municipalities must be willing to share the required data in machine-readable format, for free, so that proposed solutions can be quickly prototyped, established and launched.

In closing, let me just say one thing. In my opinion, there should be absolutely no financial gained through something like this. There should be a loss in revenue. Simple – Invest in your community, invest in innovation and the ability that we, as humans, can do much better when joining forces.

Keep in mind, this is just an idea in which businesses can collaborate and join their competition in the battle for creating a better community within keeping the citizens in mind. Let me know what you think!