TELUS Smart City Apps powered by IBM Watson makes it easier for Canadian governments to reduce service delivery costs, improve service accessibility, and identify unmet service needs through an advanced mobile-first community engagement and self-service Software as a Service (SaaS) solution.
Toronto, Canada, October 27, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Today, TELUS and Purple Forge announced the availability of TELUS Smart City Apps. Municipalities which take advantage of the new product will be able to connect residents to the latest news and announcements from their community. Through the app, embedded with IBM Watson Q&A and natural language processing (NLP) API capabilities, users can receive information straight to their smartphone about subjects ranging from routine changes to garbage collection day, upcoming city events, and emergency notices. TELUS Smart City Apps are offered through a partnership with Purple Forge, a leader in mobile-first community engagement and self-service Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions.
The TELUS Smart City App is available for governments at all levels including federal, provincial, regional, and municipal, and aims to use advanced technology to improve service delivery, increase accessibility, keep citizens connected to what’s happening in their city, and make efficient use of taxpayer resources.
"TELUS Smart City Apps allow municipalities and other levels of government to better serve their increasingly connected and mobile citizens."
Tony Geheran, TELUS Executive Vice-President and President Broadband Networks
The Town of Drayton Valley in Alberta have rolled out their “My Town App” for Android and iPhone which is based on the TELUS Smart City Apps service. “As a growing municipality we are focused on increasing accessibility of Drayton Valley services and improving response times for services" said Mayor Glenn McLean. "The My Town App is a key enabler to improve service delivery efficiency, improve citizen communications and deliver better service to our citizens. We are a relatively small community compared to the City of Edmonton, but the TELUS Smart City Apps service allows us to deploy capabilities to keep our residents informed in an effective and timely manner.”
“TELUS Smart City Apps allow municipalities and other levels of government to better serve their increasingly connected and mobile citizens,” said Tony Geheran, TELUS Executive Vice-President and President Broadband Networks. “Smartphones are now used, more and more, to interact with all levels of government and as a leader in connectivity, TELUS is at the forefront of strengthening accessible communications tools in communities across the country.”
“Delivering TELUS Smart City Apps as software as a service means that organizations do not have to take on the headache of software development, lifecycle maintenance and associated costs of internally built custom mobile solutions. Smart City Apps offer a proven, economical and transformative approach to support government goals.” said Brian Hurley, President and CEO of Purple Forge. “TELUS Smart City Apps can support the needs and budgets of small to large organizations. Organizations can start economically and grow as needed based on a broad, and expanding, range of advanced functionalities including legacy integrations, Internet of Things (IoT), location based services and IBM’s Watson cognitive computing capabilities.”
About TELUS
TELUS is Canada’s fastest-growing national telecommunications company, with $12 billion of annual revenue and 13.7 million customer connections, including 8.1 million wireless subscribers, 3.2 million wireline network access lines, 1.5 million Internet subscribers and 916,000 TELUS TV customers. TELUS provides a wide range of communications products and services, including wireless, data, Internet protocol (IP), voice, television, entertainment and video, and is Canada's largest healthcare IT provider.
In support of our philosophy to give where we live, TELUS, our team members and retirees have contributed more than $396 million to charitable and not-for-profit organizations and volunteered and more than 6 million hours of service to local communities since 2000. Created in 2005 by Executive Chairman Darren Entwistle, TELUS’ 11 community boards across Canada have led the company’s support of grassroots charities and will have contributed $47 million in support of 3,700 local charities organizations by the end of 2014, enriching the lives of more than two million Canadian children and youth. TELUS was honoured to be named the most outstanding philanthropic corporation globally for 2010 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, becoming the first Canadian company to receive this prestigious international recognition.
For more information about TELUS, please visit telus.com.
About Purple Forge
Purple Forge is an award-winning Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of mobile-first community engagement and self service solutions. Our customers include: Governments, Venues, Telecommunications Service Providers, Financial Institutions, and Membership-based Organizations. Purple Forge's platform and applications offer a wide range of features that span web, mobile, wearables, social, location based services, iBeacons and the Internet of Things. Our solutions increase customer engagement, provide insights into unmet customer needs and reduce service delivery costs. Purple Forge is an IBM Watson Ecosystem Partner.
For more information about Purple Forge, please visit www.purpleforge.com.
About IBM Watson: Pioneering a New Era of Computing
Watson is the first open cognitive computing technology platform and represents a new era in computing where systems understand the world in the way that humans do: through senses, learning, and experience. Watson continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time, from previous interactions. With the help of Watson, organizations are harnessing the power of cognitive computing to transform industries, help professionals do their jobs better, and solve important challenges.
To advance Watson, IBM has two dedicated business units: Watson, established for the development of cloud-delivered cognitive computing technologies that represent the commercialization of "artificial intelligence" or "AI" across a variety of industries, and Watson Health, dedicated to improving the ability of doctors, researchers and insurers and other related health organizations to surface new insights from data to and deliver personalized healthcare
For more information on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/Watson and ibm.com/press/watson
For more information on the Watson Developer Cloud, visit: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/
Join the conversation at #ibmwatson. Follow Watson on Facebook and see Watson on YouTube and Flickr.
Contact
Brian Hurley
President and CEO
Purple Forge Corp
1-613-216-2148
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