Are you a 4IR Start-up? Have you been in operation for 3-7 years? Are you a company developing Smart City technologies and/or innovative solutions? Do you have a pilot-ready solution for a challenge faced by our city?

The City of Johannesburg’s Smart City Office, in collaboration with Tshimologong Innovation Precinct, invites you to submit proposals for smart city innovative solutions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and to share your innovative ideas on how we can go into the future together. The lockdown protocols have ignited new thinking about the future of our City and its residents. Therefore, the aim of the Smart City Innovation Challenge is to find and develop digital technology solutions that respond to urban and community challenges faced by the City in the new normal resulting from Covid-19.

Solutions should accelerate service delivery, improve the liveability and safety of the City and enhance operational efficiencies:

·        Accelerate service delivery solutions are those that accelerate the speed in which the City is able to deliver services to its residents as well as improve the quality, availability and accessibility. Enhance operational efficiencies solutions are those that will enable City employees to operate more efficient administratively and to extract the greatest value out of their dedicated time. Improve city liveability & safety solutions are those that help improve the quality of life in the City by reducing vulnerability, improving security, and upholding standards of human dignity. These are solutions that may additionally enable the city citizens to be entrepreneurial and find new ways to sustain themselves.

Lawrence Boya, the Smart City Office Leader, state that “This innovation call is an opportunity for innovators of our City to bring forward their innovative solutions to help our City respond in a smarter way to challenges posed by Covid-19. We also hope to use this initiative to help to grow innovation in Joburg and thus make Joburg the Leading African City of Innovation. He emphasised that the ability to engage citizen through digital and mobile platforms are crucial in all technologies presented as solutions. Three winning applications will be taken into a rapid development and supported by Tshimologong’s virtual bootcamp and prototyping grant of R500 000 each. The award will be followed by the opportunity to take solutions into a pilot phase within the City.

This will be a collaborative effort between startups, corporate companies, investors, hubs, makerspaces, and government through the City of Johannesburg’s Smart City Office to support young innovators toward developing viable socially impactful solutions and businesses. 

To find out more about the challenge details and how to apply, visit the City of Johannesburg website - www.joburg.org.za and go to Campaigns - Youth Enterprises Info - Smart City Innovation Challenge or follow the link below: https://zfrmz.com/6u1GeYqvjhdNMeXyq1MR