It's almost time to apply!
This fall, we are holding our third North American Smart Cities Council Readiness Challenge — and you don’t have to win to be a winner!
The application process itself is almost like a digital smart cities workshop. The questions and knowledge resources coach you to build relationships and use best practices to make your projects stronger and easier to finance.
And all applicants get access to the Smart Cities Project Activator, an innovative online portal designed to help you envision, collaborate, plan and finance your smart cities efforts.
Are you eligible?
Our 2019 Smart Cities Council Readiness Challenge is open to all levels of government in North America, regardless of size. This spans the range from cities, counties and states to port authorities and regional associations. Utility-city and university-city collaborations are also eligible. Even innovation districts and smart developments can apply.
You do not need to have completed successful smart cities projects in order to win. With this Challenge, what you want to do is more important than what you have done. Successful applications demonstrate a clear smart cities vision and an engaged, motivated ecosystem of stakeholders and community partners to achieve it.
See what it takes to be a winner by reviewing our 2017 and 2018 winners.
What can you win?
Winners get hands-on mentoring, outcome-oriented stakeholder workshops, smart city roadmap support and help identifying financing for their initiatives. Smart Cities Council partners may also offer valuable products or services to help with your efforts.
All applicants get free use of the Smart Cities Project Activator through December 2019. It provides tools for engaging and aligning stakeholders and scoping projects.
Key dates
The application period opens on October 16, 2018 and closes January 18, 2019. Finalists will be announced by the end of February 2019; winners will be announced in March/April 2019.
The application itself is not long and can be completed in about one day — providing you have already talked to key stakeholders, can articulate your smart cities vision and priorities, and have identified at least three potential projects that you would like to work on. Past winners have found that preparation work has required a few weeks of effort.
Take the next step
Get on our Readiness Challenge interest list so that you get a message when the application launches. To do that, create a free Smart Cities Council account and select the Smart Cities Council Readiness Challenge as an interest.
