Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge winners use AI and resident input to improve city services

The winners of this year’s Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge created innovative projects to improve their cities’ core services – many using some combination of artificial intelligence and the wisdom of their residents. That’s what South Bend, Indiana, Mayor James Mueller did with his initiative that uses AI to interpret data about residents, like a family falling behind on paying its water bill, and to help offer them services and support that could prevent larger issues. “Technology is not necessarily good or bad – it’s how it’s used and how you protect against abuses,” said Mueller, a Democrat who has been mayor since 2020.

“We’re trying to use cutting edge tools to deliver city services in a proactive way that meets our residents’ needs.” The twenty-four winners announced Tuesday range from Boise, Idaho, where they are using geothermal energy to lower residents’ heating bills, to Beira, Mozambique, where they are relocating fishermen and their families from flood-prone coastal homes to safer inland houses. Each will receive $1 million to implement the program, as well as support from Bloomberg Philanthropies experts to help the new initiative succeed. READ:Just in: Mozambique’s Beira Municipality wins Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge alongside 23 other cities worldwide “The most effective city halls are bold, creative, and proactive in solving problems and meeting residents’ needs – and we launched the Mayors Challenge to help more of them succeed,” Bloomberg said in a statement.

James Anderson, head of government innovation programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies, said many of this year’s winners are integrating AI technology into their work in sophisticated ways, bringing municipal governments closer to the residents they serve. “Testing and learning and adapting new ideas don’t generally get funded with public dollars,” Anderson said. “It is up to philanthropy to support experimentation.” Vico Sotto, mayor of Pasig City in the Philippines, said becoming one of this year’s Mayors Challenge winners will speed up his project to build floating parks in the Pasig River that will become new community space and reduce flooding threats in the area.

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Without the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Sotto said the initiative wouldn’t be able to start for another year or two. “The government doesn’t have a great reputation when it comes to maintaining infrastructure,” Sotto said. “So we will be creating a governance council, including people who live in the area, so definitely they’re not going to abandon these parks.

They’re going to take care of them because they’re using them as well.” In Lafayette, Louisiana, the city-parish had the opposite problem. Lafayette wanted to update parts of its sewer system, but because some parts were on homeowners’ property the city wasn’t allowed to pay for it.

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