Innovation-in-Europes-Cities_Bloomberg-Mayors-Challenge1

The Mayors ChallengeAfter an inaugural competition in the United Statesin 2012, Bloomberg Philanthropies replicated theMayors Challenge in Europe in 2013-2014. Thepotential for a third round is being investigated,but the location has yet to be confirmed. Thecompetition is designed to strengthen localgovernance innovation. Bloomberg Philanthropiessees innovation to tackle the pressing social andeconomic issues at a city-level as strategic. Theintention is to use the competition to encouragecities to actively solve problems and also toincrease public awareness of the potential for localgovernments to seek new ways to improve city lifefor residents.The competition uses a range of incentives toencourage participation, including cash prizes,publicity for short-listed and winning cities andopportunities to engage with peers in other cities.While only five cities receive funding, 16 othercities received input from experts and privatesector coaches, and the application process, whichincludes strong technical assistance from theMayors Challenge team, is intended to help localgovernments consider innovation in a structuredmanner, increasing the potential for every city tobenefit from participating. This includes askinghow the idea is a new approach to solving aproblem in a city, clarifying how it will have ameaningful impact, demonstrating how it can beimplemented and contextualising how the ideamight be transferred to other cities. A significantportion of this task involves teaching cities to pitchand explain ideas clearly so that the best ideas canbe shared as broadly as possible.City governments identify challenges andsolutions as part of their application and arerequired to research whether a similar innovationexists in other cities. Local partners – in thisinstance Nesta, EuroCities and LSE Cities –provided further input on this. Behind the scenes,the challenge is supported by a selection committeemade up of urban, technology and governanceexperts, leveraging Bloomberg Philanthropies’extensive network. The committee is responsiblefor selecting the 21 finalists and picking the overallwinners.Strategy consultants from Monitor Deloittewere tasked with helping finalist cities to thinkthrough their theory of change, discussing theirimplementation options and challenging theirassumptions to increase the quality of the finalconcept. Before submitting an updated application,finalists took part in an Ideas Camp, a two-dayworkshop during which cities received inputfrom each other and from experts to expandand strengthen their ideas. This was designedto produce more focused, stronger applications.The five winning cities receive implementationgrants, as well as intensive assistance to accelerateimplementation. Bloomberg Philanthropies alsoprovides the group of 16 finalists with training andother support to encourage their progress. Acrossall of these efforts is a commitment to capturinglessons learnt and sharing that information withother cities.International JuryChristian Bason, Director of MindLab (Denmark)Till Behnke, Founder of betterplace.org and Headof The Millicom Foundation (Germany)Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies at theLondon School of Economics and Political Scienceand Director of LSE Cities (United Kingdom)Ron Daniel, Board Member, BloombergPhilanthropies and Former Managing Partner,McKinsey & Company (United States)Bruno Giussani, European Director of TED(Switzerland)Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Advisor to theSecretary-General and Former Head of the UrbanProgramme at the OECD (Organisation forEconomic Co-operation and Development) (France)Maria Manuel Leitão Marques, FullProfessor at the Faculty of Economics of theUniversity of Coimbra and Former Secretary ofState for Administrative Modernisation (Portugal)Christine Leitner, Senior Policy Advisor at theAustrian Federal Ministry for Science, Researchand Economy (Austria)Geoff Mulgan, Chief Executive of Nesta(United Kingdom)Bertin Nahum, President and CEO of MedtechSA (France)Carlo Ratti, Director of MIT Senseable City Laband Founder of Carlo Ratti Associati (Italy)Silvija Seres, Independent Investor and BoardMember and Managing Director of TechnoRocks(Norway)Iván Tosics, Managing Director of MetropolitanResearch Institute (Hungary)About47