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Since its first edition in 2010, LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future has proven to help cities discover innovative solutions, meaning that:
- 77 challenges have been published by global
cities; - Better solutions were delivered at 80% lower cost;
- 11 pilots are currently running/ have been completed, 19 pilots are under-way
- Solutions reached citizens 3 times faster;
- Decision makers got an average of 10x more market intelligence before making investments;
- Cities discovered 10,000 new solutions;
- Re-invention of solutions were effectively eliminated;
- 500 expert jurors carried out 25,000 evaluations against transparent criteria.
SUCCESS STORIES
WIRELESS INTEGRATION
SAN FRANCISCO
USA
San Francisco Water and Utilities Commission’s attempted for three years to procure an LED lighting upgrade to cut carbon emissions, allocating to it $17 million. The challenge was that none of the wireless control systems were open and flexible enough to integrate with other urban system over the coming years.
They joined LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future and 59 entries were discovered. PE.AMI was selected and the pilot deployment went live just 6 months after selection.
- Finding an hitherto unknown solution to an unresolved need.
- Savings are incurred for San Francisco in the following ways.
- Future cost savings worth millions of dollars by not deploying parallel wireless infrastructures for e.g. parking, electric vehicle charging, traffic light controls and smart meter reading.
- Saving the significant cost of procuring a wireless control system to the city’s own specifications, likely to cost 10-20x of deploying PE.AMI, an existing solution.
- Saving 30-40 months to deploying a pilot solution to evaluate impact before specification.
- Likely continuation of halted LED lighting within months of completing pilot, rather than years, leading to 50% energy savings years earlier.
Real-time Traffic Data
BARCELONA
SPAIN
Barcelona was seeking new solutions to automate its urban services through sensors and other technologies to secure sustainability and quality of life. The Challenge was the automation of Urban Services as new technologies have long played an important role in building the attractiveness and efficiency of Barcelona as a compact city.
After an LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future yielded 76 potential solutions, Barcelona selected CitySolver and 7 months after selecting CitySolver, the City invested into a larger deployment of the traffic sensor system based on the successful pilot.
Benefits for Barcelona incurred in the following ways:
- Finding an hitherto unknown solution to an unresolved need.
- Gaining real-time insights into the City’s traffic flows, which resulted in notable improvements for citizens..
- Saving 30-40 months to deploying a pilot solution to evaluate impact before specification.
Anti-Piracy & Nollywood Upgrade
LAGOS
NIGERIA
Film-making is a major industry for Lagos; Nollywood is recognized among the top 3 film-producing clusters in the world. Nollywood movies are cherished on the African continent as well as the global diaspora, with many movies reaching audiences of 15+ million viewers.
Yet, Nollywood suffers from a poor record on video piracy, affecting 80-90% of distribution. The challenge for Lagos was therefore to secure one of the most important generators of wealth, opportunity and employment by finding a new distribution system.
Just 12 months after announcing the results, Lagos launched the Nollywood Upgrade Project, which in its first phase will provide training, film financing and new distribution technologies to the cluster. Nollywood Workshops, a new NGO in Lagos was set up with a global governing structure introducing highest levels of transparency to the process.
Benefits for Lagos can be summarized as the following:
- Finding hitherto unknown and fully committed solution providers.
- Launch of Nollywood Workshops as a partnership including local and internationally committed stakeholders within just 12 months.
- Involving leading global institutions such as Harvard University.
- Combining training, film financing, and new distribution technologies into a single process.
LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future matches cities and solution providers to implement real-life pilots provide a more complete evaluation before investment and regulatory decisions are taken.
- Companies gain access directly to cities in need of their solution;
- Interested cities provide a full evaluation of solutions providing market feedback;
- Time to market is accelerated by a factor of three;
- Later procurement and regulatory decisions by cities are aware of all solutions;
- Companies that have carried out pilots report that they saved an average of $380,000 through faster & streamlined processes.
Bitcarrier was selected in a Call for Solutions by Barcelona, and within 3 months had deployed a pilot to prove the viability of their solution to all stakeholders. After just 9 months from first contact, Bitcarrier had completed the first commercial contract and gained a significant project reference.
Socrata saw procurement completed within just 9 months of winning the Call for Solutions by San Francisco, accelerating the spread of their Open Data Cloud Solution to 50 leading public sector organizations around the world as a result.
Eggup.com, a high-technology start-up from Hawaii was selected as a winning technology and Nollywood Upgrade Project was launched with $1 million financing within just 12 months to provide strategy, financing and technology to Lagos’ film producer.
Urbiotica carried out 2 pilots leading to contracts and venture capital of $1.8M.
Paradox Engineering launched a pilot and announced US market entry within just 6 months selection by San Francisco and secured industrial alliances with leading global players within weeks to scale up business development.
Skybus announced a pilot project to provide new mobility solutions in Lavasa, India, becoming the first international SME to provide services to what is seen the first of 80+ new cities to be built in India.
Investment and regulatory processes in cities today are often highly technical, and removed from the citizens. This is partly a result of the high degree of bureaucratic requirements and the often technical nature of the systems to be evaluated.
Tele 5 on Sant Cugat’s Smart Street Pilot:
LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future helps cities present opportunities to improve the lives of citizens early on in the decision-making process, giving them the methods and tools to learn about all available approaches in the marketplace.
As a result, citizens and other stakeholders are able to participate actively in the problem-solving process, whether in discovering or presenting solutions, visiting and evaluating the real-life pilot or following up on later procurement and regulatory measures.
Most importantly, though, citizens benefit in four measurable tangible ways:
- Public resources are allocated with 10 times more market intelligence, reducing costs by an average of 80% which frees up money to be reinvested into other priorities;
- High-impact solutions reach the citizens 3x faster, meaning that lives are improved often 3-7 years quicker;
- Real-life pilots allow citizens to experience the future much faster, and give life to often complex technological systems and their relevance to urban life;
- LLGA is a transparent process—citizens can follow all the steps and learn about who in their city is taking part in the decision-making processes