A couple folks I know are helping out with a IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge and asked me to take a look at it–I approve wholeheartedly as it brings out my tech geek and marries it to my city redevelopment ideas. Here’s a bit from IBM:
Could your city use an infusion of IBM talent and technology? The computing giant is offering its help with the Smarter Cities Challenge, a grant program that will dole out $50 million worth of technology and services to 100 cities around the world.
The program, launched this week, will give $250,000 to $400,000 worth of services to each city selected through the competitive grant process. Those services may include access to City Forward (an IBM tool which allows cities to analyze and and visualize data across systems), workshops on social networking tools, time with top IBM talent, and assistance with strategic planning. IBM explains:
A consistent theme will be collecting, sharing, analyzing and acting on data. For instance, IBM experts might suggest ways to link the processes and objectives of multiple departments to reduce cost and improve productivity. A city’s education program could be more effective if it was closely coordinated with social services, transportation, parks and recreation, public health, and safety. Police officers might be more effective if timely, customized information were electronically “pushed” to them while walking the beat or in transit. Citizen engagement could be improved if computer access were more widespread. Snow removal teams might be more efficiently deployed if ultra-precise weather data were obtained and analyzed.
Anyone who deals with city governments, and Chicago as well as many other cities in Illinois included, know that often one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing and citizens often have a hard time figuring out who to talk to where. While efforts are made to make it better, seldom can cities coping with a recession and any number of other problems take a larger strategic view of it’s systems and plan how to integrate them.
The important thing to keep in mind is that, the applications are due by the end of the year. That’s the bad news, the good news: the application is awesomely simple compared to most grant applications.
1. Fill out the application here: https://smartercitieschallenge.org/reg.do
2. The proposal has to include the following criteria in order to be successful:
– Describe 1-3 potential problems or opportunities to address with the grant
– Provide clear, compelling evidence that the city is well positioned to utilize the resources offered in the Smarter Cities Challenge
– Outline how a grant of IBM talent and technology has the potential to substantially enhance the city’s capacity to act on key issues
– Highlight recent efforts to develop innovative solutions to public problems, including any initiatives to implement new technologies or open data policies
– Demonstrate the city is ready to match IBM’s investment with its own commitment of time and talent, including access to the city agencies and personnel relevant to the project
If you’d like to know more, you can watch a short video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmhs4-QplWc
You don’t have to be an avid Governing reader to figure this out, just make sure your city knows about it and can take advantage of it.