Smart City Challenge
About:
Now entering its fourth year, the Long Beach Smart City Challenge enables City Departments to collaborate with technology companies to address civic problems to increase our capacity for service delivery to residents. This program invites staff from all City Departments to identify opportunities to collaborate with technology companies for a period of up to six months to pilot emerging products and services.
These pilot projects are intended to provide City staff with a no-cost opportunity to quickly understand how we might adopt technology and leverage partnerships to drive innovative service delivery for our residents, in alignment with our Smart City Strategy.
Previous Smart City Challenge pilot projects include:
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The Planning Bureau piloted an air quality monitoring solution with Aclima to advance the City's Climate Action & Adaptation Plan objectives (2021)
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The Public Works Department worked with Transnomis to create a public permit data dashboard, and partnered with Numina to pilot a mobility data collection sensor solution (2021)
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The Technology & Innovation Department worked on a project to crowdsource resident feedback, which resulted in a contract with Zencity, a data-driven service for City staff to better understand resident sentiment on key policy issues (2020)
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The Development Services Department partnered with Tolemi to provide the public with a dashboard to view ongoing development projects in Long Beach (2019)
Eligibility:
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City staff: All City Departments are invited to propose and develop Smart City Challenge Statements.
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Vendors: Companies, innovators, and entities of all sizes may submit proposals to address the City Challenge Statements. Long Beach-based solution providers are especially encouraged to apply. To apply, vendors must:
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Register as a vendor on Long Beach Buys, the City's procurement platform.
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Sign up for updates on the Smart City Challenges via our newsletter! You'll be the first to know when we release our 2022 Challenge Statements.
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Process: |
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Challenge Discovery: The first Smart City Challenge phase requires internal City stakeholders to articulate priorities and needs to solicit proposals from an array of partners. City staff participants will be guided through the process to develop a Challenge-based RFP, which will be publicized across various channels to capture a variety of proposals from vendors. |
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Proposal Evaluation: Participating City staff will review all proposals and select the one they believe address their current challenge best. The review process will consist of a committee of major stakeholders and implementation partners to evaluate each proposal on feasibility of implementation and opportunity to scale. |
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City Council Approval: Following the selection of a pilot partner, the Smart City Initiative staff will compose and submit a letter of intent for Long Beach City Council approval to grant the City authority to enter contracts for all Smart City Challenges. |
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Pilot Implementation: The City and the selected vendor will agree to a project implementation plan and scope of work. The implementation plan will set clear expectations, a project timeline, key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress and demonstrate success, a user testing process, and an overall communications plan. The operational pilot period typically lasts five months. |
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Pilot Evaluation: At a milestone in advance of the pilot end date, the City will evaluate project success based on the agreed-upon KPIs and make a determination about scaling the project. Note: A successful pilot does not guarantee a larger implementation of a product or service. The right to scale a pilot is at the discretion of the City and is contingent on total cost and budgetary priorities, changes in the City's scope, evolving market conditions, and access to City resources. |
Resources
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Contact:
For any questions, about the Smart City Challenge, please contact Ryan Kurtzman, Smart Cities Program Manager, City of Long Beach Department of Technology & Innovation, at ryan.kurtzman@longbeach.gov.
