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 FY 2018 outcomes and demonstrations of the technology developed during the Startup Residencies.
SUMMARY:
The purpose of this item is to provide the Innovation and Technology Committee with an update on the FY 2018 outcomes of the CivTechSA program, including demonstrations of the technology developed during the Startup Residencies.
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. 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: Two startups, Reckon Point and Kinetech Cloud, were selected to solve challenges for the Aviation and Department of Human Services, respectively. The startups worked with the departments for 16 weeks to develop custom solutions to address the challenges at hand.
Reckon Point was selected to work on a civic challenge submitted by the Airport to develop an easy-to-use tool for users of the Airport to access information. Throughout the 16-week Residency Program, the Reckon Point team worked with Airport staff and third parties to map out the facility using its proprietary LiDAR-mapping robot and create a custom application to unify key facility information, navigation and points of interest.
Kinetech Cloud was selected to work on a civic challenge submitted by the Department of Human Services (DHS) to digitize the Utility Assistance application and communicate status updates with applicants. Over the course of the Residency Program, Kinetech Cloud worked closely with DHS to digitize the application process and build out a variety of features that ensure that applicants cannot submit unless all necessary information is provided and that they receive regular notifications on the status of their request for assistance.
ISSUE:
CivTechSA is a unique program that seeks to connect and develop our student, entrepreneur and tech communities while tackling City challenges. Goals of the CivTechSA program are to: expand the City’s capacity for innovation; develop customized technology solutions to community challenges; create a tech talent pipeline that fuels startup ecosystem growth; and develop civically-minded business leaders.
The purpose of this item is to provide the Innovation and Technology Committee with an update on the FY 2018 outcomes of the CivTechSA program, including demonstrations of the technology developed during the Startup Residencies.
ALTERNATIVES:
This item is for briefing purposes only.
FISCAL IMPACT:
This item is for briefing purposes only.
RECOMMENDATION:
This item is for briefing purposes only.