DEPARTMENT: Office of Innovation
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Jose De La Cruz, Chief Innovation Officer
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City-wide
SUBJECT:
Briefing on the CivTechSA program including the goals, partnerships and events for FY 2018.
SUMMARY:
The purpose of this item is to provide the Innovation and Technology Committee with an overview of the CivTechSA program to include an update on current efforts and partnerships.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
CivTechSA is a partnership between the City of San Antonio's Office of Innovation and Geekdom, a local co-working space and leader in the startup and tech ecosystem in San Antonio. The program's mission is to connect students, entrepreneurs and the tech community with the City to solve community challenges and grow civically-minded tech talent. There are four pillars to the program that build on each other:
1. 6-12th Grade: CivTechSA empowers teachers to bring civic engagement, govtech and entrepreneurial principles into their classrooms to inspire students to give back to their community and consider entrepreneurial careers.
2. University Students: CivTechSA partners students from a variety of disciplines with City departments to help solve challenges as part of their coursework and University competitions. City staff provides the data, observations, guidance needed to help students build innovative solutions. Geekdom connects the students with business mentors and provides other opportunities to build their ideas into self-sustaining startup companies.
3. Entrepreneurs: CivTechSA hosts a variety of workshops and events where entrepreneurs can solve civic challenges in a short period of time and build their knowledge of City government, municipal partners and entrepreneurial principles.
4. 16-week Residency: Three startups will be chosen to solve three out of seven Civic Challenges the City identified. The chosen startups will work with the City for 16 weeks to develop custom solutions to present at ...
Click here for full text