Colorado Smart Cities Alliance
Cityfi helped set up the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance, a statewide, multi-jurisdictional collaboration of public, private and academic sector leaders brought together to collaborate for the benefit of the residents and businesses of Colorado by enhancing quality of life through human-centered design and public policy, as well as through the deployment of 21st century technology and infrastructure.
The Colorado Smart Cities Alliance works to solve complex city challenges and facilitates the multi-stakeholder collaboration needed to solve real problems. The Alliance is committed to accelerating the piloting and adoption of smart cities projects and initiatives across jurisdictions to solve community challenges.
Method
Cityfi was tasked with standing-up the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance, which involved designing the guiding vision and principles of the Alliance; developing its membership structure and recruiting participants, including nearly 20 city “members” from across Colorado, private sector companies, and academic and research facilities; conducting broad-based discovery sessions with the cities to identify and catalogue areas of challenge, capability and need; and facilitating quarterly “Civic Labs,” which served as a third space for the cities and private sector to gather to discuss challenges, opportunities, new technologies and innovative use cases.
Discovery sessions typically included broad representation from City departments. Insights were incorporated into a central repository to help inform Alliance project priorities and opportunities for regional collaboration. Cityfi also organized and hosted quarterly Civic Labs, a cross-sector forum for the exchange of ideas, problem-solving and networking. Cityfi’s role included structuring, promoting and facilitating the Labs, as well as sharing key insights garnered from each. Cityfi also developed the Alliance Board, which set the initial governance structure and operating framework for the Alliance, as well as facilitated Board meetings. The team also engaged with private sector and philanthropic funders to share the vision of the Alliance and build financial and in-kind partnerships. Finally, Cityfi was responsible for developing promotional materials, a social media platform and website to share information, attract members, and communicate progress.
