As mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg innovated to make life easier for residents. One example: he shut down some traffic lanes and intersections, then put up chairs, tables and umbrellas to encourage citizens to linger there and enjoy the city.
He’s no longer mayor of that city, but he’s still at it. His Bloomberg Philanthropies have funded $42M toward helping 100 American cities improve life for their citizens, using innovation and existing data the cities haven’t been equipped to mine.
Anchorage this month won one of the grants, $1.5M over three years. Here to explain how the city competed and how it plans to use the money is Brendan Babb, Anchorage’s Chief Innovation Officer. He’s been on the job about nine months now.
Brendan has been active in civic hacking and Code for America for years. He grew up in Anchorage, studied mathematics in Oregon, and came home to work on making Anchorage a better city. He says being CIO is his dream job.
Join us. Maybe you have ideas you think Brendan should tackle to improve livability in Anchorage? Let’s hear them!
HOST: Kathleen McCoy
GUESTS:
- Brendan Babb, chief innovation officer for Anchorage
- Myer Hutchinson, communications director, Anchorage
LINKS:
- Giving cities room to experiment and innovate, The Atlantic
- Bloomberg to give $42M to help cities do more with data, Washington Post
- What Works Cities, Bloomberg Philanthropies website
- What city halls say across America about using data and evidence, Huffington Post
- Anchorage Innovate, city website inviting ideas
- Brendan Babb, Anchorage’s new data maestro, 6/6/2016 ADN
- Anchorage supports open data, innovation with new CIO, city press release, May 24,2016
- Municipality of Anchorage adopts open data policy, city press release, 4/27/2016
- Code for America, website
- Behavioral Insights Team, website for innovation team, Great Britain
- Behavioral Insights for Cities, 39-page PDF, Behavioral Economics report
- Eight (no nine!) problems with big data, New York Times, 4/2014
- Code Cracking: Why is it so hard to make a website for government, New York Times Magazine, November 2016
PARTICIPATE:
- Call 550-8433 (Anchorage) or 1-888-353-5752  (statewide) during the live broadcast (2:00 – 3:00pm)
- Send email to hometown@alaskapublic.org before, during or after the live broadcast (e-mails may be read on air) hometown@alaskapublic.org
- Post your comment or question below (comments may be read on air)
LIVE BROADCAST: Wednesday, January 25, 2017, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. (Alaska time)
REPEAT BROADCAST: Wednesday, January 25, 2017, 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. (Alaska time)
SUBSCRIBE: Get Hometown, Alaska updates automatically — via email, RSS or podcasts.
