Introducing San José Unleash Your Geek 2020!
Partnering to build community-focused solutions
On December 11th, Mayor Sam Liccardo announced Unleash Your Geek 2020, the third edition of the City of San José’s annual open innovation challenge. This year, Mayor Liccardo will provide $100,000 in seed funding to accelerate the development of effective, sustainable, and community-focused solutions.
The City of San José will partner with startups to develop the following:
- Drones for Firefighters to enhance emergency response, Fire Department
- Real-time interpretation tools to make community meetings more inclusive for Limited and non-English Speaking Residents, Office of Immigrant Affairs
- Improved, automated Vietnamese and Spanish language translation for the city’s digital interfaces, beginning with the recycling website, Environmental Services Department
- Real-time translation for emergency responders to communicate with Limited and non-English Speaking Residents during crises, Office of Emergency Management
- Automated scanning of rental listing websites to reduce discrimination against Housing Voucher Tenants, Housing Department
Why should startups participate?
Over a period of four to six months, the participating startups will work closely with City staff to design, prototype, and deploy their products in San José. Unleash Your Geek 2020 will culminate in a Demo Day in summer 2020, where residents will have the opportunity to view the prototypes and see how they will benefit their community.
“Unleash Your Geek embraces the role of cities as laboratories to test and demonstrate technologies with civic impact, and to enable those innovations to scale,” said Mayor Liccardo. “I look forward to seeing the creative applications that will emerge from participating entrepreneurs — such as deploying drones for search and rescue operations or AI for real-time interpretation services for Spanish-speaking residents — that will advance public safety, equitable housing, and climate action in San José.”
Startups are strongly encouraged to apply to one of our five challenges at www.cityinnovate.com/challenge.
