CityAgent – A Natural Language Interface for Ottawa’s Civic Data
Supervisor : Nafiseh Kahani
Team size: Minimum 3, Maximum 4
| CSE | SE | Comm | Biomed | EE | Aero | Special |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Description
This project will be conducted in collaboration with a team from the City of Ottawa. The City of Ottawa continues to expand its use of self-serve digital tools and open data to improve transparency, citizen engagement, and operational efficiency. However, many staff and residents still face challenges when trying to find or interpret information about city assets such as parks, roads, and infrastructure investments. This results in repetitive information requests, underused dashboards, and barriers to timely decision-making. To address this, our project proposes CityAgent—a natural language interface that allows users to ask plain-language questions and receive clear, data-informed answers about municipal services, asset conditions, and investment priorities. CityAgent will act as an intelligent layer between the City’s structured data and its users, enabling residents and staff to ask questions like “When was this park last maintained?” or “What infrastructure projects are planned in my ward next year?” and receive real-time responses grounded in existing data sources. CityAgent will be available as a public-facing tool and/or an internal resource, which offers conversational summaries alongside links to more detailed dashboards and reports.
Prerequisites:
Strong programming skills