City Of New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS ONE OF 24 GLOBAL CITIES CHOSEN FOR IBM SMARTER CITIES CHALLENGE GRANT

Consulting Services and Technology Valued at $400,000

NEW ORLEANS, LA -- Mayor Mitch Landrieu today announced that IBM has selected the City of New Orleans to receive an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant. The grant will provide City Hall with access to IBM's top experts to analyze and recommend ways New Orleans can become an even better place in which to live, work and play. The approximate value of each Smarter Cities Challenge grant is equivalent to as much as $400,000.

“This announcement reaffirms the private sector and philanthropy community’s confidence in our city and New Orleans’ role as a laboratory for innovation in America,” said Mayor Landrieu. “It’s no secret that the city government and technology infrastructure we inherited was not sufficient to even deliver quality services for our residents. In 2011, we are investing $2.7 million to build a culture of performance and accountability within City Hall and IBM’s support will be vital to enhance the work we’re doing to make government work better for our citizens.”

The IBM Smarter Cities Challenge is a competitive grant program in which IBM is awarding a total of $50 million worth of technology and services to 100 municipalities worldwide over the next three years. Teams of specially selected IBM experts will provide city leaders with analysis and recommendations to support successful growth, better delivery of municipal services, more citizen engagement, and improved efficiency.

New Orleans is one of eight US cities selected in the first round and one of 24 cities from around the globe. Over 200 cities applied globally. The City and IBM will begin the consulting work in the third quarter of 2011.

IBM selected cities that made the strongest case for participating in the Smarter Cities Challenge. During these engagements, IBM technical experts, researchers and consultants immerse themselves in local issues and offer a range of options and recommended next-steps. Among the issues they examine are healthcare, education, safety, social services, transportation, technology and communications, sustainability, budget management, energy, and utilities.

"We selected New Orleans because of its commitment to the use of data to make better decisions, and for its desire to explore and act on smarter solutions to their most pressing concerns," said Jennifer Crozier, Director, IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs. "The cities we picked are eager to implement programs that tangibly improve the quality of life in their areas, and to create roadmaps for other cities to follow. The stakes have never been greater but we're excited at the prospect of helping cities tackle the most pressing challenges of our time."

IBM's consultants and technology specialists will help municipalities analyze and prioritize their needs, review strengths and weaknesses, and learn from the successful strategies used by other cities worldwide. After studying the role that intelligent technology might play in uniting and advancing different aspects of city life, IBM then outlines a range of concrete strategies designed to help make cities healthier, safer, smarter, more efficient, more prosperous, and attractive to current and prospective residents and businesses.

“IBM, with its technological and analytic expertise, has a remarkable opportunity to work with us in the transformation of one of America’s great cities by focusing on the basic administrative and technological infrastructure needed as we work to better-deliver basic city services,” said Deputy Mayor & CAO Andy Kopplin.

The City is pursuing several initiatives that will be integrated into a comprehensive performance management system, including an Office of Performance and Accountability to spearhead citywide performance measurement and NolaStat for mayoral priorities like blight and revenue collection, Budgeting for Outcomes for citizen-driven budgeting, AskNOLA (3-1-1 system) for customer service, and a process reengineering team in the Department of Information Technology and Innovation dedicated to making government more efficient. IBM’s resources—talent, technology and analysis— will help the Landrieu administration leverage the already $2.7 million investment being made in 2011 and create new tools to support effective service delivery that are replicable across the nation.

“We have asked IBM to partner in our efforts to implement a comprehensive performance management system that improves quality and cost-effectiveness in the delivery of services and promotes accountability and transparency to our citizens,” said Allen Square, Jr., Chief Information Officer. “An important role they will have is advising how we can improve data warehousing and database
systems so that information is more readily available and reportable.”

The City’s application was developed by Square, Director of the Office of Performance and Accountability Oliver Wise, and Advisor to the Mayor for Strategy and Development Ashleigh Gardere.

Smarter Cities Challenge is sponsored by the international philanthropic foundation at IBM, which has been a leader in corporate social responsibility and corporate citizenship for 100 years. For more information about the Smarter Cities Challenge grant program, visit http://www.smartercitieschallenge.org.  

The 24 cities that earned IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grants in 2011 include:

Antofagasta, Chile
Boulder, CO
Bucharest, Romania
Chengdu, China
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Delhi, India
Edmonton, Canada
Eindhoven, Netherlands
Glasgow, UK
Guadalajara, Mexico
Helsinki, Finland
Jakarta, Indonesia
Milwaukee, WI
New Orleans, LA
Newark, NJ
Nice, France
Philadelphia, PA
Providence, RI
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Sapporo, Japan
St. Louis, MO
Syracuse, NY
Townsville, Australia
Tshwane-Pretoria, South Africa