Since the opening of the city's Office of Innovation, Chief Innovation Officer Louis Stewart has thrown open the doors on making Sacramento a regional powerhouse by welcoming companies to pilot new technologies and working with educational institutions to provide skilled workers. Stewart's goal is to make the city into a place where talented minds will choose to stay long-term.
The city was recently in the news because of its pilot with Phantom Auto cars. In turn, the city introduced Phantom to DeepenAI, which works to automate street mapping.
"The government a lot of time is a convener, because it's not like we have resources galore to either man all this stuff and make all these projects happen or pay to have all this stuff happen," Stewart said in an interview with Techwire. "We're hoping that with minimal investment and with partners jumping in with us, we can minimize how much impact it is on Sacramento, but on the other side, maximize what we actually get."
The city began a pilot program in June 2017 that allows companies to come to the administration with an idea to test. One such pilot has been Jump Bikes. The city accommodated the pilot with ordinances to protect cyclists and pedestrians and also began testing protected bike lanes.
"You have to have willing external partners," Stewart said. "You have to have industry that's willing to work with the timelines of city government. You have to have leadership within the city that has vision beyond 2020, to see what the possibilities are here in the city. And then you have to bolster it with the university and make sure it's in alignment with what they see training needs are going to be."
The city is also looking into electric, dockless scooters. Stewart is interested in bringing stakeholders to the conversation around each pilot so emergencies can be mitigated before they occur.
"We don't want the knee-jerk 'Don't bring it here,'" Stewart said. "We don't want to be seen as anti-, but let's figure out what makes sense. Let's explore that with Company X and see if you guys have a solution that works, and, 'By the way Company Y and Z, we're working on this, what do you guys have?' Hopefully we can come to some compromise that is citizen-centric."
Some of those pilot companies are reaching out because they see Stewart and other city leaders discussing initiatives in the public arena. Those companies take advantage of the open doors and bring new ideas to the office.
"We can work with everybody around the region to see if stuff actually works, or fail quickly and move on to the next thing," Stewart said.
Other ideas come through local incubators, including the Golden 1 Center, which act as bridges between private industry and the city.
"They're a source of leads," Stewart said. "They gave me the tour, started explaining what they were testing in the building. I said: 'I'm here to serve you guys. You guys are my customer. If you guys have anything that you think can go to scale, ship them over to the city and we'll figure out ... if it's an opportunity that Sacramento's actually ready for.'"
The city is still working to expand its Internet of Things, since broadening connectivity will enhance opportunities for more autonomous vehicles, smart initiatives and research, according to Stewart. The city has been working with Verizon but it is not a closed contract.
The city's next projects could include:
- Connected pedestrian crossing
- 3-D lane dividers
- Vertical farming
- Geofencing
- Drones in deliveries and emergency management
- Ag-tech
- AV shuttles and fleets
