DEPARTMENT: Office of Innovation
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Jose De La Cruz, Chief Innovation Officer
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City-wide
SUBJECT: Information about a proposed Innovation Zones
SUMMARY: A briefing on proposed Innovation Zones to serve as proving ground for smart city technology and smart city transportation technology.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: In FY 2017, the City of San Antonio launched a Smart City Program, called SmartSA. As part of the FY 2018 Budget a vision for this program was adopted that will guide future smart city projects and strategies, this vision is to build a connected, inclusive and resilient community supporting a high quality of life. The first two key focus areas of the SmartSA program as adopted in the FY 2018 Budget are transportation and access to services.
In November 2017, the City begun leveraging existing innovation and technology relationships between the City, CPS Energy, SAWS, VIA, and the San Antonio River Authority. The team has identified several key focus areas: 1) establishing a governance model for the program, 2) creating a data sharing/data management plan, and 3) determining what shared infrastructure can be utilized for smart city projects.
To advance these focus areas, the establishment of an “Innovation Zone” is being recommended to test new and emerging smart city technologies, to understand the data it produces and to leverage that information to analyze and predict problems that can be solved by the City of San Antonio and its partners. An Innovation Zone will serve as pilot area to provide an opportunity to test various smart city technologies in a defined geographic area prior to city-wide implementation.
Several U.S. cities including Dallas, Denver and Las Vegas have created similar proving grounds to pilot various smart city technologies before wide scale implementation. These cities have partnered with private sector companies to test smart city technologies within a defined geographic area, including: smart streetlights, smart parking, sensors, wi-fi connectivity and interactive digital kiosks.
In considering an area for an innovation zone several criteria were considered, including: Fiber readily available, access to existing and planned public transportation, growing residential district (live/work/play), commercial or residential development or redevelopment, attractiveness to innovative companies, well defined “grid” within the innovation zone to focus.
The concept of establishing Innovation Zones was presented to the Innovation and Technology Committee on April 24.
ISSUE: City Council will be provided with a briefing to create Innovation Zones that will provide the City of San Antonio and its partners an opportunity to pilot various technologies, leverage existing assets, and create partnerships.
ALTERNATIVES: This item is for briefing purposes only.
FISCAL IMPACT: This item is for briefing purposes only.
RECOMMENDATION: Staff recommends approval of the creation of Innovation Zones to serve as proving ground for smart city technology and smart city transportation technology.