Austin Among Five Municipal Winners Of 'Smart Cities' Challenge Grant Program

AUSTIN, TX — Smart Cities Council, which bills itself as the world’s largest smart cities network, announced Wednesday that Austin is one of five winners among municipalities applying for a workshop to develop a smart technologies road map.

The city joins Indianapolis, Miami, Orlando and Philadelphia as the winners of the Smart Cities Council Readiness Challenge Grant program. More than 130 cities were involved in the application process. The winning cities will receive a tailored Readiness Workshop during 2017 to develop a road map for applying smart technologies to further innovation, inclusion and investment within their cities.

The winning cities will also receive supporting products and services from Council member companies and advisors including Ameresco, AT&T, CH2M, CompTIA, Dow Building and Construction, IDC, Qualcomm, Sensus, Telit, TM Forum and Transdev, officials said.

“Breaking down the departmental silos is a key challenge in developing a smarter city, Smart Cities Council Chairman Jesse Berst said. "Each of the winning cities has demonstrated the ability to work across departments to solve problems. Our coalition of world-class experts looks forward to working with each of these enterprising cities to help them make smart use of technology to become more livable, workable, sustainable and resilient."

Local officials said Austin will use its Readiness Workshop to develop strategies to invite under-served populations to participate in designing solutions for their mobility needs as well as affordable housing and economic development. The fast-growing city is concentrating its efforts on reaching people who could benefit from a government that’s more responsive to their needs, but rarely take part in traditional forms of civic engagement, Mayor Steve Adler said.

“This will help Austin use new technologies to meet old challenges of mobility and affordability,” the mayor said in a prepared statement. “Winning the Smart Cities Council Challenge Grant puts us that much closer to creating a comprehensive and inclusive strategy to use technology in a way that benefits communities that are usually left behind.”

Launched in 2012, the Smart Cities Council is the author of the internationally recognized Smart Cities Readiness Guide, which provides guiding principles and best practices for an integrated, cross-cutting smart city. The Readiness Guide is the framework used to produce Readiness Workshops, which are delivered all over the world to help cities create their smart city road maps, officials said.

With regional councils in North America, Europe, India and Australia/New Zealand, the council is composed of more than 120 partners and advisers who generate $2.7 trillion in annual revenue and who have worked on more than 10,000 smart city projects past and present, according to the organization.

To learn more, visit the Smart Cities Council website by clicking here.

>>> Image: Austin, Texas; via Ed Schipul, Flickr; used under Creative Commons