Just the other day, at a press conference announcing Curalate as an official technology provider for the Democratic National Convention, Mayor Jim Kenney said he was glad to see the DNC take advantage of Philly’s tech resources.
Now city government is looking to harness some of that tech energy through the Smart City Challenge, an open call for ideas from citizens and experts on how the city can improve services and operations through tech. At this stage, the city is looking for ideas on how to leverage city assets — think streetlight poles and cell towers — through that elusive idea that is the internet of things (IoT).
City officials said in a press release that they hope to hear from technologists, telecommunications specialists, social entrepreneurs, engineers, architects, designers and general city enthusiasts working locally or internationally.
“We know the people of this city — in the neighborhoods and in the private sector — are steeped in great ideas, and this is an effort to tap into that wealth of creative thinking,” said Chief Administrative Officer Rebecca Rhynhart, who is overseeing the challenge. “Whatever your background, if you have an innovative idea on new uses for city assets, we want to hear from you.”
Rhynhart told Technical.ly in a phone interview that the key difference between this city initiative and StartUp PHL’s Call for Ideas grants is that the Smart City Challenge is specifically geared at IoT and finding tech applications for the city’s assets.
“It’s not a rebranding of the same effort,” Rhynhart said. “Both are calls for ideas, and they’re similar in that sense, but this is specifically on the assets to promote the internet of things.”
Here’s a few suggestions of ideas the challenge is looking for:
- Remote meter-reading that allows information to be collected and forwarded to the Water Department for billing purposes.
- Dynamic street lighting systems that can be controlled remotely, react to citizens, provide valuable data and/or reduce energy costs.
- Detection devices that can identify a gunshot and send the information to the City’s 911 Center while simultaneously alerting the City’s cameras in the vicinity to focus in on the location.
- Technologies that can detect changes in traffic flows, pedestrian and cyclist activity, and parking availability.
- Public WiFi in commercial and neighborhood corridors that would support communities of mobile/flexible workers.
- Public Safety Surveillance: Additional video surveillance points and cameras, used exclusively for public safety purposes, which police could monitor, especially in high crime areas.
The first stage of the challenge is a Request for Information (RFI) to gather as many ideas as possible. The deadline for the RFI is Aug. 12, so companies and individuals interested in applying better get cracking. After this process wraps up, a Request for Proposals will follow from the applicants of the first round.
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The Challenge is the result of a partnership with Citymart, a group that partners with cities to help them seek new solutions to procurement. Citymart will help Philly disseminate the RFI. According to Rhynhart, Citymart is being paid by the city through a Knight Foundation grant.
Does anyone know what that Knight money is going into to help disseminate the RFI? All I was able to find from Citymart was the 1 page on their squarespace site with a FAQ and a storify embedded.
The RFI structure for getting creative ideas from people on these opportunities seems pretty limiting as far as 1) individual citizens and experts contributing and 2) having any sort of dialog between ideas where people can build on each other.
Maybe a structured RFI process is the best way to get ideas from a certain class of organizations, but how might we supplement that to open up more of a two-way conversation around these opportunities?
The City would like it’s local entrepreneurs and citizens to submit their ideas and concepts so that it can then be repackaged and put out for public bid? As a supporter of the local tech community, do you see an inherent flaw with this approach? “Upon submission, responses to the RFI become the property of the City.” Here’s my idea that we have spent our time and money on developing… take it and own it? If the Administration is trying to foster a strong local tech community, recognizing and awarding innovation would seem to be the path forward.
The language about “become the property of the City” is very off-putting, though my guess is that the intent behind it is a lot more innocuous then it sounds (e.g. they want to be able to publish it without violating IP). It will certainly serve as a barrier to a lot of responses though and the City would do well to clarify what that means exactly
To your point though about locals’ ideas getting repackaged, I would think anyone’s motivation for sharing ideas here should be seeing their city improved rather than getting a leg up on any eventual RFP
Chris,
Not sure I agree about the speculation regarding intent as it could easily been addressed by a license agreement. What if the idea is a huge success? But instead a well funded dev shop or company jumps on the idea and develops a similar product. Same products…one company has a history and the other a new start up. Wonder who wins the RFP? Ideas need to be funded. Good luck trying to get investors to fund the MVP when you gave away the concept. (Btw nothing stops the new co from racing to get IP protection once the idea is published). What if you have already been funded? I’m not sure that the investors would be real happy…I would be interested in seeing what the CitySmart and City agreement looks like. I love the idea of local entrepreneurs and citizens making their City better. There are numerous concepts, start-ups and ideas that are focused on Municipal offerings…all geared toward making their City better. There should be more details and more disclosures …as it reads now, I fear that our start up community is exposed to potentially an over-reaching. I assume Technical.ly will be following up on this as the start up community’s advocate…