The City of Saskatoon is working to break the cycle of Indigenous youth incarceration with ConnectYXE.

ConnectYXE is the city’s final proposal for the federal government’s Smart Cities Challenge which is a competition encouraging community improvement.

“ConnectYXE makes sure youth can connect to the right resources and programs to help solve problems using services such as the web, an app, schools and libraries,” City of Saskatoon technology integration manager Jazz Pabla says. “We created a system where youth will know what’s available if they are looking for something to eat, something to do or somewhere to sleep.”

Saskatoon has been selected as a finalist for the Smart Cities Challenge and is in the running to receive $10 million for their proposal.

“We will be going forward with the project even if we don’t win the money,” Pabla says. “Within a couple of years this should be something for the youth to consume.”

The city is entered in the category of communities with less than 500,000 residents.

“For the last eight months we have been working closely with the project’s Indigenous Youth Advisory Group, community-based organizations (CBOs), institutional partner organizations, and the technology community,” Lynne Lacroix, acting general manager of community services, says in a press release. “We learned from those who have the most experience and the most at stake, what can make a difference in their lives. We built our proposal around that.”

The City of Saskatoon submitted their final proposal on Mar. 5.

Communities with larger populations entered in the Smart Cities Challenge can win as much as $50 million and the prize for smaller communities is $5 million.

The federal government will announce the winners of the Smart Cities Challenge this spring.

For more information on ConnectYXE watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzZN_fVf29s.

(PHOTO: Courtesy of the City of Saskatoon.)