Smarter Cities Challenge

Smarter Cities Challenge — the global program of grants started in 2010 within which provides to the local authorities of IBM selected a competitive basis the free consulting aid in questions of providing the vital services to the population.

Program conditions

The IBM company sends a team of the five-six leading specialists to each city receiver of a grant of Smarter Cities Challenge. At least a month before the trip they study the key problems designated by the city authorities. After that the team of experts spends three weeks in the region grantee where it closely cooperates with representatives of local authorities and public organizations, collecting the additional information. Then they analyze data retrieveds and provide to municipality recommendations about improvement of service quality of citizens which can include strategy elements, tools for data analysis, detailed plans of implementation of the corresponding projects and also programs for personnel training.

Cities owners of grants

Within an initiative of Smarter Cities Challenge of the city used the insights received on the basis of analytics of data for improvement of programs of affordable housing, economic development, infrastructure and city planning, public security, the system of social service of the population, transport and also water quality, power sources and the environment. Here only some cities receivers of grants of last years:

• Memphis (USA) the City cooperated with IBM for the purpose of reduction of time of rendering the emergency medical care and ensuring access of the population to treatment-and-prophylactic actions. In particular, support of needy citizens who received medical care mainly in hospital casualty departments was the purpose of the program.

• Dublin (Ireland) Thanks to work with IBM the city had an opportunity to use eco-friendly and inexpensive solar energy. According to the results of cooperation solar panels were installed on roofs practically of all city government buildings.

• Pyeongchang (South Korea) Future capital of the Olympic games of 2018, develops now and advances the new opportunities of tourism which are beyond the winter Olympic Games. As expected, it will allow to solve the existing problems of social and economic development of the regional level.

• Syracuse (USA) Now the city uses data analysis for identification of areas in which the high share of unoccupied premises is noted and there is a risk of loss of the right of their redemption. The analytics is also used for mobilization of necessary resources for stabilization of a situation in such zones and increases in a taxable basis of objects.

As a result of implementation of the innovation recommendations of IBM the cities gained recognition for the achievements worldwide. For example, Townsville (Australia) received a prestigious award of National Smart Infrastructure Award for the project on water consumption reduction. Pingdong (Taiwan) in 2015 won the competition Energy Smart Communities Initiative for implementation of smart micronetwork of renewable energy sources. Chkhondzhu (South Korea) was noted in the statement of the minister of public administration and security as the best example of implementation of effective use of the budget.

Results of the program

2017

By the beginning of 2017 within an initiative IBM sent 800 best specialists to more than 130 cities worldwide. The cost of each project was about $500 thousand. Total amount non-paid consulting and the IT services provided to IBM from 2010 to 2016 is estimated by the company at $65 million.

History

2017: Expansion of the program

In February, 2017 IBM announced expansion of the Smarter Cities Challenge program and organization of additional grants for the city administrations for the purpose of quality excellence of the services rendered to citizens. For participation in the program the cities need to submit applications no later than February 24, 2017.

IBM promises officials free three-week consulting on creation of the smart cities

Till this time of IBM will accept requests from the city administrations for which examination and advanced technologies of IT giant, such as analytics of data, cloud and cognitive computing and also complex meteorological observations, can bring notable benefit. Recommendations which are transferred by IBM on a grant basis will help local authorities to increase quality and efficiency, to provide equal access when rendering services to citizens.

IBM will select the most interesting requests and will call about 10 cities receivers of grants at the end of spring of 2017. The company will render services of consulting up to the middle of 2018.^[1]

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