The Smarter Cities Challenge is a signature IBM Citizenship initiative that contributes IBM technology and the skills and expertise of teams of IBM experts to address key challenges facing cities around the world.
Winning cities receive a team of five to six IBM experts that deploys to the winning city to work closely with the city leadership for a three-week period on their proposed challenge. The IBM team works closely with its host city to gather information about root causes and potential solutions to the obstacles at hand.
The team then analyzes that data and uses its insights to offer support that can take the form of strategic recommendations, data-driven tools, implementation roadmaps and workshops and staff trainings. These outputs are drawn from the technical experience and strategic insight of the IBM team, city staff and community members to incorporate the entire community’s insight.
IBM cognitive computing and big data capabilities provide Smarter Cities Challenge winners with deep, data-driven insights into their urban challenges and enable them to generate and evaluate options that improve policy development and decision-making. This leads the way for creative new solutions.
Over the past six years, more than 132 cities have been selected to receive grants, each valued at $500,000; total contributions to date are valued at more than $66 million. Winning cities have used the recommendations prepared by Smarter Cities Challenge teams to make substantive progress on a diverse array of urban issues, including transportation, infrastructure, social services and economic development.