Philadelphia, PA — The City of Philadelphia’s Innovation Team is pleased to host the Innovation Showcase, an event highlighting the City’s commitment to enabling creativity and efficiency in municipal governance. The City is announcing a new initiative at the event, the Idea Accelerator, a program made possible by the generosity of Verizon. The Idea Accelerator will launch with a cohort model in January 2025 and provide support for small project teams to refine ideas and solutions. The Idea Accelerator will supplement and connect the City’s current innovation programs, the Innovation Fund, the Academy for Municipal Innovation, and Innovation Consulting.
“The City of Philadelphia has steadily built the innovation team and its work over the last decade,” said Andrew Buss, Deputy Chief Information Officer. “We’re eager to use this capacity we’ve developed to contribute to Mayor Parker’s initiatives to improve our public service delivery and look forward to continuing our collaborative relationship with both the Office of the Chief Administrator as well as the Mayor’s Office of Policy Planning and Delivery.”
“Through the Idea Accelerator and other initiatives that will further the success of the Innovation Fund, Verizon is enhancing the City’s capacity to deliver powerful and innovative solutions that benefit all Philadelphia residents,” said Eric Fitzgerald Reed, Vice President of Verizon’s Public Policy and State Government Affairs, PA & DE Region. “Verizon is proud and excited to support the City’s work towards a more creative and accessible municipal government.”
The Innovation Showcase event will feature information about all of the City’s innovation programs, including demonstrations of design thinking tools taught in the Academy, a partnership with Thomas Jefferson University. Innovation Fund grantees will also showcase their projects, highlighting the diverse range of pilot initiatives supported by the City.
About the Innovation team: The team provides cross departmental support for greater efficiency, equity, and quality. It works to develop a public sector culture that encourages employees to think and work differently and establishes relationships with academia and the corporate sector to support workforce needs, research and development, and awareness.