Presentation to Civic Tech Toronto Meetup https://www.meetup.com/Civic-Tech-Toronto/events/237172986/ David will be presenting an Open Source Amazon Echo project he wrote to display City of Toronto Open Data, e.g. parks, schools, well-known locations. Results for the queries made to the Amazon Echo are displayed on a kiosk-like web page. He'll also talk about the data normalization process he used (built on Schema.org), to make all the various data sets have a common data format.

1. Alexa /
Toronto Open Data

2. David Janes
@dpjanes
davidjanes@davidjanes.com
http://iotdb.org/social/imadeit/
February 2017

3. Introduction

4. Background
• hackster.io contest, do something useful
with:
• Alexa / Amazon Echo
• Open Data

5. My Project
• Alexa Toronto Open Data
• https://www.hackster.io/dpjanes/alexa-
open-data-toronto-dbc9fc
• Control a "Kiosk" through voice commands
• [demo]

6. Alexa, ask Hey Toronto…
• Show Skating Rinks
• Show Skating Rinks nearYonge & Eglinton
• Show the CN Tower
• Show Beaches
• Show Libraries near Woodbine Beach

7. Important Links
• Code,Alexa Skill, Data
https://github.com/dpjanes/alexa-opendata

8. Normalizing Data

9. Data Sets
• Bicycle Stations
• Cultural Hotspots
• Green P Parking
• Intersections
• Libraries
• Parks
• Places of Interest
• Places of Worship

10. Data Formats (in)
• Shapefiles
• XML
• KML
• JSON
• CSV

11. Data Format (out)
• schema.org
• standardized vocabulary for well-known
frequently used terms
• YAML

12. Data Format (out)

13. Alexa Skills
(Voice Control)

14. What
• amphitheatre
• amphitheatres
• architecture
• architectures
• art
• art galleries
• art gallery
• arts
• attractions
• auditorium
• auditoriums
• …

15. Where
• 48th Highlanders
Museum
• ALLEN RD and Eglinton
• Adelaide and Bathurst
• Adelaide and Bay
• Adelaide and Bayview
• Adelaide and Eastern
• Adelaide and Jarvis
• Adelaide and Spadina
• Adelaide and University
• Adelaide andYonge
• Aga Khan Museum
• …

16. Utterances
• where is the {Where}
• where is {Where}
• where are {What}
• where are {What} near
{Where}
• where are {What} near
the {Where}
• where are {What} near
me
• where are {What} near
us
• where are {What}
nearby
• show me {What}
• …

17. Important Links
• Alexa Skills Console
https://developer.amazon.com/edw/
home.html#/skills/list
• Sample Code & Skill
https://github.com/dpjanes/homestar-alexa

18. Final Notes

19. Services
• Amazon Alexa
• Firebase
• Digital Ocean (LAMP-ish)

20. Pit/Pratfalls
• Amazon Echo is rather awful at strange
words, like Toronto street names (e.g. Bay &
Adelaide)

21. Possible Uses
• 311 Assist
• Tourism Kiosks
• …

22. Get in touch!
David Janes
@dpjanes
davidjanes@davidjanes.com
http://iotdb.org/social/imadeit/