Austin Among Semifinalists In U.S. Mayors Challenge Competition

AUSTIN, TX — Austin is a semifinalist in the 2018 U.S. Mayors Challenge — a nationwide competition encouraging city leaders to unveil bold and inventive ideas confronting the most challenging of urban woes.

The city was one of 35 municipalities making the semifinalist cut after an original pool of more than 320 applicants, Mayor Steve Adler said in a news advisory. The next stage of competition will be a six-month testing phase where cities will develop prototypes of their ideas with grant funding of up to $100,000 per city.

The Mayors Challenge is part of the American Cities Initiative, a $200 million suite of new and expanded programs that will empower cities to generate innovation and advance policy that moves the nation forward, the mayor explained. Austin now advances to the six-month “Test, Learn, and Adapt” phase of the competition.

In advancing their vision, cities will refine their ideas during this process with the $100,000 in aid while seeking personalized support from innovation experts to test and begin building support for their urban innovations and submit a new application in August 2018. In October, four cities will receive $1 million awards and one will receive a grand prize of $5 million to bring their ideas to life.

"We received hundreds of bold and creative ideas from cities around the country in response to the 2018 Mayors Challenge, and these 35 really stood out for their potential to improve people’s lives," Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and three-term New York City mayor, said in a prepared statement. "The next six months are a great opportunity for the cities to test their ideas and make them even more innovative and effective.”

The 35 Champion Cities performed the best against four key criteria - vision, potential for impact, implementation plan, and potential to spread to other cities, officials explained. A prestigious selection committee co-chaired by former Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and former Xerox Chairman & CEO Ursula Burns and comprising distinguished policy experts, artists, academics, business executives and social innovation leaders assessed the applications.

The Austin proposal calls for so-called "blockchain" technology to provide homeless residents with a unique identifier enabling them to access their personal records at any time, yielding access to critical services. For those experiencing homelessness in Austin, lack of ID can mean barriers to, or delays in, their access to housing, employment, and other services critical to dignity, support, and recovery, officials explained.

"Imagine if, instead of experiencing broken hand-offs from hospitals to respite care or from substance abuse recovery programs to shelter that adversely impact recovery, a client is able to provide access to their digital passport which has an auditable account of what happens next in the system of care," officials said. "Blockchain would make data easily available across different social service and healthcare organizations to help service delivery personnel frustrated by working with incomplete information and provide more consistent and reliable access to those experiencing homelessness."

The 35 semifinalist U.S. cities will compete for the grand prize, including contenders Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Washington DC.

"Austin is an innovative and creative city with a track record of tackling existing new challenges in new ways, and this is a perfect example," Adler said. The 2018 Mayors Challenge builds on the success of previous Bloomberg-sponsored Challenges in the U.S. (2013), Europe (2014), and Latin America and the Caribbean (2016). For more information, visit mayorschallenge.bloomberg.org and @BloombergCities on Twitter and Instagram.

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