PRESS RELEASE

Long Beach, CA - The City of Long Beach Department of Technology and Innovation has published its first Smart City Initiative 2022 Annual Report, which showcases key accomplishments and outcomes regarding how the City has used technology and data to manage change and expand capacities to better the daily lives of Long Beach residents, enhance City operations and make the best possible use of resources across all City Departments. 

"Our Smart City Initiative has made incredible progress in helping us use technology and data to create innovative, equitable solutions for both City practices and public services for our community,” said Mayor Robert Garcia.

The 2022 Annual Report features notable Smart City Initiative accomplishments including: 

• Equitable Data Collection Toolkit, launched in January 2022, to guide City employees as they design, distribute and share insights from demographic surveys.
• Pitch Long Beach!, launched in February 2022, a program that allows vendors to pitch an idea for a project directly to the City. The ideas that offer promising solutions to legitimate City needs will be shared with Department subject matter experts, evaluated with transparent criteria, and may be implemented as pilot projects.
• Long Beach Augmented Reality (AR) Challenge, a festival in August 2021, that featured interactive AR experiences for members of the Long Beach community to enjoy.

“Our Smart City Initiative is one that is inclusive, responsible, resilient, and above all community-centered,” said Director of Technology and Innovation Department Lea Eriksen. “We are now so thrilled to be able to share our accomplishments with the community! We look forward to continuing our work to improve the lives of all Long Beach residents through the adoption of new technologies.”

The Smart City Initiative, launched in 2019 and led by the Technology and Innovation Department, aims to advance solutions to civic challenges by engaging the community, City staff, and the private sector to explore and implement emerging technology. It is built upon principles of equity, inclusion, transparency, resilience, innovation and community collaboration and founded on guiding principles that provide a framework for the City’s technology projects, goals and outcomes such as:

1. Design for Equity: Reducing historic inequities and disparities by ensuring technology advancements are accessible to all and improve quality of life for communities that have been underserved.
2. Earn Public Trust: Building public confidence through excellence in data privacy, data transparency and community engagement.
3. Cultivate Local Expertise: Promoting place-based growth by supporting Long Beach entrepreneurs and businesses, improving workforce job-readiness and building partnership networks.
4. Build Civic Resilience: Improving capacity to respond efficiently and effectively to the most-pressing civic challenges using data-informed decision-making.

The annual report follows the 2021 recognition of the City being named Top Digital City in its population category by the Center for Digital Government as well as one of 10 new US cities  to achieve a What Works Cities certification for its exemplary use of data to guide decision-making and improve residents’ lives.

More information about the Smart City Initiative, including guiding principles, pilot programs and exciting new projects, is available on the Smart City Initiative webpage. The full 2022 Annual Report is available here.  

About the City of Long Beach
Home to approximately 470,000 people, the multiple award-winning and innovative City of Long Beach offers all the world-class amenities of a large metropolitan city while maintaining a strong sense of individual and diverse neighborhoods nestled together along the California coast. As a full-service charter city, Long Beach is home to the Queen Mary, Aquarium of the Pacific, several museums and theaters, a highly rated school district, Long Beach Airport, the Port of Long Beach, as well as many award-winning City departments such as Health and Human Services; Parks, Recreation and Marine; Development Services; Public Works and more. The City also has a highly respected university and city college, two historic ranchos, five hospitals, 12 libraries, five golf courses, 169 parks, miles of beaches, marinas, bike paths and a Bike Share program.

For more information about the City of Long Beach, visit http://longbeach.gov/. Follow us on social to keep up with the latest news: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

About Technology and Innovation
The Technology and Innovation Department provides a centralized resource for technology deployment and support throughout the City. It is our mission to provide a customer-focused environment that integrates people, processes, and technology to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of City services. To learn more about Technology and Innovation, visit: longbeach.gov/ti.