Date Published: May 17, 2018, 12:09 p.m.
DataCity is the ultimate response for cities to accelerate innovation through collaboration. DataCity is a global open innovation program that brings together cities, companies, and startups to address together city challenges and develop solutions to build sustainable and efficient cities, using data and technologies. The program was created in 2015 by NUMA, in partnership with the City of Paris. After three seasons in Paris, DataCity's goal is to keep building viable and replicable businesses on a large scale through public and private datasets.
The program takes place in a city level. It has already been launched in 3 cities, and discussions are ongoing for 3 more.
Starting date: Every year in September
Ending date: Every year at the end of the experimentations, in June.
Experts from each city department and operators from the participating corporations define strategic challenges that must be tackled using the provided data sets. NUMA drives the problem identification process, ensuring the challenges represent strategic issues that the corporations and the city cannot solve internally, or do not have an existing idea or process in place to launch a call for tenders.
The challenge definition phase is the first phase of the programme, the goal is to end up with the design challenges the startups will apply to and tackle during the programme. The methodology focuses on Desirable, Viable, and Feasible challenges.
Once the challenge definition phase has ended and all the challenges have been formalized and posted on the website, a public call for application is launched. NUMA scouts startups, and organize the selection of the startups that will try to tackle the challenge: the goal is to find the best startup, offering the most relevant approach on each challenge.
Once the call for application has ended, the selection phase starts to identify the start-ups relevant for the challenges, so that the partners can have a first overview and start building a relationship with the candidates.
At the end of the selection phase, each corporation is matched with at least one startup on 1 challenge. The startups that are selected for each challenge will then implement the approach they proposed during the selection phase.
During the experimentation phase, startups alongside their corporate and city team members, develop the prototype meant to respond to the challenge. During a fast-paced acceleration period, each team has to validate the approach envisioned to respond to the challenge, develop a prototype or MVP, test, and iterate, to eventually produce measurable results.
The experimentation phase lasts for 2 to 3 months depending on the format, and NUMA oversees and pilots the development of each experimentation. NUMA ensures that the projects follow strict design methodologies and acceleration methods such as :
The startups selected work hands in hands with the city experts and corporate partners of their challenge to develop a concrete solution, and specific KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are defined to ensure the development of the solution.
The last phase of the program is the “Measure and share” phase. During this phase, NUMA in collaboration with the project teams, analyze the work accomplished during the program for each experimentation, assess its impact and share the results during a major communication landmark which is the Demo Day or Pitch Day.
The program is financed by the corporations that wish to lead a challenge and act as a contributor (in expertise or data) in others. For this season (2017-2018), 11 corporations participated to DataCity.
DataCity NUMA provides the collaboration framework that enables those players to work together and pave a way for new innovative solutions to emerge quickly, but the results are much wider than a concrete solution.
DataCity gives the city the opportunity to :
And for the corporates sponsors to :
Main metrics collected through our 3 seasons:
+ 200 challenges identified every season
+ 20 000 startups in DataCity’s Database
+ 20 corporates partners in Paris
+ 350 startups applications per edition
And…
+ 100% of the challenges lead to a solution tested in the City
+ 70% of the corporate partners still collaborate with the selected startups
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