About Smart City Innovation Challenges

Overview

Smart City Innovation Challenges:

• help find innovative smart technology solutions to improve places and outcomes for communities
• create partnerships between the technology and innovation sector and the NSW Government
• grow the number of new smart places products, services, and solutions in NSW
• increase the commercialisation of NSW Government-funded innovation for smart places.

The Smart City Innovation Challenges are funded through the Smart Places Acceleration Program.

How innovation challenges are run

Smart City Innovation Challenges are a competitive procurement process.

For each challenge:

1. We release a challenge statement to the market. This invites emerging technology providers to submit a proposal.
2. A judging panel assesses proposals against set criteria. The criteria are in the Smart City Innovation Challenge Guidelines (PDF 965.58KB).
3. The panel selects up to 10 proposals and invites applicants to present their ideas at a Pitchfest event.
4. The panel selects up to 3 pitched proposals to progress. We provide funding for these applicants to refine their idea and deliver a feasibility study. During this phase, applicants work with NSW Government experts and other partners to get structured feedback.
5. The judging panel reviews the feasibility studies.
6. We award up to $1 million to successful applicant(s) to develop their idea(s) over 12 months. This may include the development of a proof of concept and/or trialling implementation of the solutions in partnership with government.

Program guidelines

Program guidelines set out who can participate and how we run challenges. Read the Smart City Innovation Challenge Guidelines (PDF 965.58KB).