Smarter Cities Challenge aims to make lasting urban improvements

Over the past few years, a lot of cities have made a lot of improvements.
Memphis, Tennessee improved response times during health emergencies. Pingtung County, Taiwain implemented a smart microgrid for renewable energy. Syracuse, New York mobilized resources to find more homes for more people.
Leaders in those particular cities developed the initial ideas, but they didn’t do all the work on those projects on their own. They participated in the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge, a competitive grant program in which cities around the world offer up ideas, and IBM provides its problem-solving capabilities in the areas of cloud, cognitive, analytics and more to the cities with the most compelling proposals.
IBM has opened submissions for a 2017/2018 version of the challenge, with statements of interest due by 24 February 2017. Out of an expected 100 proposals, IBM will choose 10 or so grant recipients by the spring, and a team of five to six experts help those cities with their projects until May 2018.
The Smarter Cities Challenge has been going for six years, and in that time IBM has helped some 132 cities, with each grant valued at $500,000, for contributions totaling more than $66 million.
“Cities around the world are under enormous, daily pressure to tackle growing challenges with ever-more limited resources,” Jennifer Crozier, vice president of global citizenship initiatives at IBM told Read IT Quik. “Often, they lack access to the most innovative technology solutions and insights that could be applied to solve those problems and improve services.”
IBM hopes to change that with the Smarter Cities Challenge, thereby making lasting improvements.
Check out the full Read IT Quik article to find out more.
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