IBM pledges $50 million to create 100 smarter cities

By eGovAsia Editors | Nov 22, 2010

Thumbnail: 

ARMONK, New York -- IBM has announced it will award $50 million worth of technology and services to help 100 municipalities across the globe.

Through its Smarter Cities Challenge, a competitive grant program, teams of IBM experts will provide city leaders with recommendations for successful growth, better delivery of municipal services, more citizen engagement, and improved efficiency.

This new program is the single-largest philanthropic investment currently planned by IBM, which made $186 million worth of charitable contributions in 2009, comprising cash, technology, and consulting services.

Over the next three years, IBM will send its top experts to cities that have made the strongest case for participating in the Smarter Cities Challenge. IBM consultants will immerse themselves in local issues involving the administration of healthcare, education, safety, social, transportation, communications, sustainability, budget management, energy, and utilities.

After studying the role that intelligent technology might play in uniting and advancing different aspects of city life, IBM will recommend concrete strategies designed to help make regions healthier, safer, smarter, more prosperous, and attractive to current and prospective residents and businesses.

A consistent theme will be collecting, sharing, analyzing and acting on data.  For instance, IBM experts might suggest ways to link the processes and objectives of multiple departments to reduce cost and improve productivity. 

A city's education program could be more effective if it was closely coordinated with social services, transportation, parks and recreation, public health, and safety. Police officers might be more effective if timely, customized information were electronically "pushed" to them while walking the beat or in transit.  Citizen engagement could be improved if computer access were more widespread.  Snow removal teams might be more efficiently deployed if ultra-precise weather data were obtained and analyzed.

To ensure the success of Smarter Cities Challenge, IBM completed, or is conducting, a series of pilot grants in Baltimore, Maryland; Austin, Texas; and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (Greater Charlotte).  Those engagements are producing valuable insight into how cities might derive the greatest benefit from IBM's expertise, and will serve as a model for engagements elsewhere.

"We are honored to have been the first city chosen for IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge," said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.  "Over the last number of weeks, we enjoyed brainstorming with IBM about making the delivery of Baltimore City's citizen services even more effective.  It was refreshing to hear new and creative points of view, and inspiring to hear about the successful approaches undertaken by other like-minded cities.  I was particularly pleased that they quickly grasped our vision for the future, and offered strategies for realizing and even enhancing those potential plans."

The approximate value of each Smarter Cities Challenge grant will be equivalent to $400,000.  Each team will comprise top IBM talent who will bring their unique expertise to the program.  The engagement will be conducted in a collaborative, constructive and transparent manner, with IBM team members working alongside leaders from the public, private, and volunteer sectors.

The need for better city management has never been greater.  In 2008, according to the United Nations, more than half the world's human population began living in cities for the first time in the world's history.

"Cities are vitally important to society and the economy," said Stanley S. Litow, IBM Vice President of Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs, and President of IBM's Foundation. "But they have enormous challenges and need the innovation, creativity and technical know-how to tackle longstanding, tough issues and plan for the future.  We're excited at the prospect of helping city leaders address the most demanding challenges of our time and make their cities even more liveable."