City of Long Beach Launches 2023 Smart City Challenge

• Extra Large
• Large
• Normal
• Small

PRESS RELEASE

Long Beach, CA - The City of Long Beach has launched the 2023 Smart City Challenge. Now in its fourth year, the Challenge seeks to create collaboration between City Departments and the private sector to improve City service delivery through piloting creative solutions addressing key civic issues and needs.

"We look for innovative, technology-forward and equitable ways to improve City practices and public services," said Mayor Rex Richardson. "The 2023 Smart City Challenge provides local businesses the opportunity to be a part of our creative solutions that benefit the community."

The Smart City Challenge is conducted annually and prioritizes the equitable use of technology to solve City challenges. City staff identify opportunities for improvement based on their frontline experiences. By utilizing a Challenge-based request for proposals (RFP), they can explore flexible, creative and innovative ways to more quickly and cost-effectively test potential solutions. Furthermore, the Challenge-based RFP creates a lower barrier to entry for emerging companies to pitch a wide array of solutions that might have gone unnoticed in a traditional RFP process.

The 2023 Smart City Challenge includes seven challenges from four Departments that seek to tackle issues including digital accessibility, improve response time for City residents, and immersive educational experiences. Below is the complete list of participating Departments and challenge statements:

• The Long Beach Parks, Recreation, and Marine Department is seeking an immersive, interactive, educational and fun technology-based solution to provide global travel experiences for youth, teenagers and older adults at City parks.
• The Long Beach Public Works Department is seeking to integrate phone call and email inputs into a centralized database, utilizing Salesforce, to capture environmental, roadway, Capital Improvement Plan, stormwater and mobility/transportation issues from staff, residents and visitors to decrease duplication of effort and inform future CIPs.
• The Technology and Innovation Department Help Desk Team is seeking a simple and reliable software solution that uses smart technologies to improve the quality of City help desk call center operations, improve user satisfaction and improve tracking of first call resolution.
• The Technology and Innovation Department Desktop Support Team is seeking a simple and mobile-friendly solution that integrates with ServiceNow service management ticketing system to improve efficiency of the Desktop Support staff so they can group the tickets by region to reduce the travel time as well as the resolution time for City Employees' requests for support.
• The Long Beach Technology and Innovation Department is seeking a responsive tool to efficiently connect users to the information, services and contacts they need across the City's website to increase accessibility and user satisfaction.
• The Long Beach Water Department Engineering Bureau is seeking a system that includes communication and scheduling components to improve internal workflows with the goal of effective time management and performance measurements so that the Development Services team can provide timely response to those who rely on services.
• The Long Beach Water Department is seeking a remote solution that can manage individual and group meter degradation to inform the Meter Evaluation for Degradation and Revenue Recovery Project to help City staff improve capital planning.

More information specific to each challenge, including project background, detailed objectives, and minimum requirements, can be found on the 2023 Smart City Challenge webiste. for vendors will close on Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. Interested vendors are also invited to attend an open Q&A session on Thursday, Jan. 26 at 1 p.m.

Earlier this year, the City published the first Smart City Initiative Annual Report showcasing key accomplishments and outcomes for past Smart City Challenge initiatives. Additional details about the Smart City Challenge are available on the Challenge webpage. More information about the Smart City Initiative, including guiding principles, pilot programs and exciting new projects, is available on the Smart City Initiative webpage.

About the City of Long Beach
Home to approximately 470,000 people, the multiple award-winning and innovative City of Long Beach offers all the world-class amenities of a large metropolitan city while maintaining a strong sense of individual and diverse neighborhoods nestled together along the California coast. As a full-service charter city, Long Beach is home to the Queen Mary, Aquarium of the Pacific, several museums and theaters, a highly rated school district, Long Beach Airport, the Port of Long Beach, as well as many award-winning City departments such as Health and Human Services; Parks, Recreation and Marine; Development Services; Public Works and more. The City also has a highly respected university and city college, two historic ranchos, five hospitals, 12 libraries, five golf courses, 169 parks, miles of beaches, marinas, bike paths and a Bike Share program.

For more information about the City of Long Beach, visit longbeach.gov/. Follow us on social to keep up with the latest news: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

About Technology and Innovation
The Technology and Innovation Department provides a centralized resource for technology deployment and support throughout the City. It is our mission to provide a customer-focused environment that integrates people, processes, and technology to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of City services. To learn more about Technology and Innovation, visit: longbeach.gov/ti.

For more news, pictures, videos and announcements of what's happening in Long Beach, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.