PEI

Charlottetown vies for $10M Smart Cities prize

The City of Charlottetown is competing for a big prize in order to support the mental health of its youth.

Smart Cities Challenge has a $10M prize

'We need to make sure that [social media] is contributing meaningfully to our lives,' says Horton.
Technology could be used to connect people to programming or set up virtual support groups, says Ramona Doyle. (Shutterstock)

The City of Charlottetown is competing for a big prize in order to support the mental health of its youth.

The city is submitting an entry into the Smart Cities Challenge, a competition that encourages communities to improve lives through technology. The first step is for the city to identify a problem they would like to tackle.

Ramona Doyle, Charlottetown's sustainability officer, said technology could help with youth mental health in a variety of ways.

The city is still narrowing down how it might approach the challenge, says Ramona Doyle. (Jessica Doria-Brown/CBC)

"You could use technology in a way to connect people better to programming," said Doyle.

"It could be a way to use virtual support groups for youth, it could be data collection."

The prize is $10 million.

If Charlottetown is chosen as a finalist, it will receive $250,000 to further develop the proposal.

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