Data lovers gathered at the Exchange District in Winnipeg on Saturday to bring a creative smart city product forward. Four organizations – the City of Winnipeg, Winnipeg Economic Development and Tourism, Canada Computing and Launch Coworking – jointly hosted the 2026 Winnipeg Open Data Datathon at Launch Coworking in Exchange. With this year’s theme being “smart city,” participants were tasked to build a product by using datasets openly available from the city’s Open Data Portal within a limited time. “Smart City is a really broad term and it is used differently by different people and I think we intended to have a broad theme,” said Justin Dallmann, data scientist with the city. In the event’s case, the term was defined as cities using data to help their citizens, he said Saturday. “It could be anything. From smart sensors, to doing analyzes of substance use data we just put up – or lawn mowing data, tree points and heat changes with climate change. “It’s everything that involves the city and intersects with data use.” Attendees at the event were at various levels of aptitude. “We have students who are just getting started in their data careers, we have professors who have worked on it and industry professionals,” Dallmann said. “It really spans the gamut – people who do spatial analysis, statistics, AI, visualization – all of it.” Dallmann said the aim of data science can be broader than the theme of smart city. “There’s an accountability aspect to it, like making sure that the government is doing what they should be doing and keeping up with expectations of the public – as well as being able to feed products that will rely on this data, to make good predictions for our citizens going forward.” He added the openly available datasets can help citizens immensely. “Imagine you are a planner. It’s going to be really helpful to know traffic patterns – how they are changing, which areas of the city are building or tearing things down. “The permitting data is very useful and we also have data on assessment and taxation … that stuff can be very vital for industries operating here.” With change as the only constant for technology, Dallmann said reading the trend should be an advice for prospective data scientists. “It’s really important to come out to events like this and to keep up on your credentialing and studies, so that you can be at the forefront,” he said.
