Vaughan mayor mulls bringing Israeli tech service to city after Mideast trip
DigiTel expected to connect city’s residents with its officials
Yorkregion.com
Dec. 16, 2019
Dina Al-Shibeeb
Vaughan is continuously striving to be a full-fledged Smart City especially when it’s anticipating the opening of Canada’s first Smart hospital on its ground in late 2020.
But after Maurizio Bevilacqua’s second trip to Israel as Vaughan’s mayor, he and some of his accompanying staff are considering to bring what some Israelis are using -- DigiTel Resident Card -- to further boost Vaughan’s Smart City appeal.
“It’s basically a great way to have a two-way communication where citizens can tell municipalities what’s happening in their area, for example, notifying the city of a broken signage,” Bevilacqua told the Vaughan Citizen.
Founded in Tel Aviv, each DigiTel card holder has access to personalized and “individually tailored” information that’s delivered via email, text messages and personal resident accounts to get their daily updates of road closures in their area registering for school, or local events for example.
Card holders not only receive information when it comes to municipal events but they also get to know of discounts and benefits.
“So we're going to take a further look at this particular project because we think that it may have potential applications here in the city of Vaughan,” Bevilacqua added.
When asking the mayor about the cost of the project, he said, “We are still in preliminary discussions.”
“Our officials here need to contact their (Israeli) officials and begin the process of further analyzing the project.”
Bevilacqua, however, said that since starting DigitTel as a “pilot” in 2013, it has almost 200,000 registered users over 60 per cent of the eligible population with ages 13 and up in Israel.
As Vaughan considers this service, the only Memorandum of Understanding signed during the eight-day trip from Nov. 22 to Nov. 30 was of a cultural nature.
With Vaughan having the highest percentage of Hebrew speakers in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, Bevilacqua and his counterpart Mayor Michael Vidal at the Israeli city of Ramla signed an MOU that “commits the two municipalities to develop a comprehensive four-year action plan that advances cultural opportunities.”
The MOU calls for the “establishment of a new, robust and accountable framework to ensure this action plan has clearly stated goals and objectives,” the City said.
Asked why is there no business MOU, Bevilacqua said, “because the business to business meetings were taking place while we were there.”
He also said it takes “a bit of time” for deals to be signed.
“Our role is to facilitate these meetings with the Vaughan Chamber of Commerce and to establish a greater presence of the city of Vaughan in Israel.”
He added, “I think from a government to government point of view when you meet with four mayors in eight days and you have the agenda that we had, which was extremely packed, we did all we could to fit in as much as we possibly could in a short span of time.
"But the seed has been planted and now we have to just wait for it to bear some fruit.”
In addition with meeting with mayors from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramla and Haifa, Bevilacqua and members of council also met with representatives from Israel’s Ministry of Economy and Industry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Fuel Choices and Smart Mobility Initiative -- a project led by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
They also met with representatives from Canada’s Embassy in Israel, including Stanley Gomes, Counsellor and Senior Trade Commissioner.
Most importantly, with Mackenzie Vaughan Hospital expected to be the first new hospital to be built in Ontario’s York Region in the last 30 years, Vaughan councillors and the mayor met with Dr. Rafael Bayer, an “experienced, accomplished and trusted leader with the world-class Rambam Medical Center -- one of the largest medical centres in Israel, located in the city of Haifa.”
The mayor said, “We're going to initiate dialogue” between Dr. Bayer and Mackenzie Health to exchange experiences.
At Rambam, “We saw firsthand the cutting edge technologies that’s improving patient care,” he said.
Led by Bevilacqua, the city’s delegation included Local and Regional Councillor Linda Jackson, Ward 4 Councillor Sandra Yeung Racco, Ward 5 Councillor Alan Shefman and City staff.
