PRESS RELEASE

Long Beach, CA - The City of Long Beach Department of Technology and Innovation has published its second Smart City Initiative Annual Report, which reports on the City’s progress in meeting the 11 objectives of the 2021 Smart City Strategy and showcases innovative technology and data privacy accomplishments over the last year.

"Our City team is dedicated to exploring and identifying how new technology can improve City operations and deliver value to Long Beach residents,” said Mayor Rex Richardson. “As our lives become more and more connected, we need to continue investing in tech that supports our most underserved residents without compromising our privacy.”

The 2023 Annual Report features notable Smart City Initiative accomplishments including: 

• Launch of the Long Beach Collaboratory (LB Co-Lab) in November 2022, a new immersive technology program for Long Beach residents to design and deploy technologies in their neighborhood and gain career skills to find tech jobs. Over 30 community members representing four neighborhoods are participating.
• Success of the Smart City Challenge and Pitch Long Beach technology pilot programs that allow City staff and vendors, respectively, to propose and implement short-term pilot projects. The 2023 Smart City Challenge has incubated five challenge ideas sourced from City staff who will work with tech vendors to implement no-cost solutions over a six-month period. After launching in March 2022, the Pitch Long Beach! open call for ideas has received over 120 vendor submissions, two of which moved to the pilot implementation stage with interested City staff teams that never would have known about these solutions otherwise.
• Design of a prototype Digital Rights Platform that aims to inform the public about the City’s use of smart technologies (e.g. cameras, sensors, 5G cells) and data collection practices. The Smart City Initiative team piloted the Platform in fall 2022, which includes a physical signage component with eye-catching iconography and a web-based portal for users to learn more and share feedback. The team, in partnership with California State University Long Beach, was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant to continue these efforts.

“Over the last year, our Smart City Initiative team has grown to meet the growing demand from City staff, vendors and community members to explore new technologies,” said Director of Technology and Innovation Department Lea Eriksen. “Long Beach is a leader in the smart city movement, and we are committed to ensuring that smart technology works for everyone.”

The annual report follows the 2022 recognition of the City being named the number one Top Digital City in its population category by the Center for Digital Government as well as its continued recognition as a What Works Cities Silver-certified City, a national standard of excellence in data-driven city governance.

The Smart City Initiative, launched in 2019, 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. This is evident through the 2023 Smart City Challenge after a six-month program evaluation was conducted to improve the participant experience for City staff and private sector vendors.

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 2023 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 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.