R1,1 Million ($62 000) will be available to the winners of the 2024 Innovation Challenge developed under the City of Johannesburg’s (COJ) Smart City Strategy or SCIIP.
The challenge is directed at improving and modernising service delivery methods that encourages both employees and COJ citizens to innovate concepts that will accelerate service delivery.
The initiative hopes to create an environment conducive to co-producing and supporting, innovative, impactful solutions, by the community, that are effective, visible, and sustainable.
The stated purpose of the Innovation Challenge is to:
- Foster a culture of innovation through both significant advancements and incremental improvements.
- Engage residents and employees to collaborate on impactful solutions using their combined ideas.
- Eliminate bureaucratic barriers to enhance innovation in service delivery.
For the purposes of this year’s challenge, “innovation” has been defined as the creation or promotion of a new service, product, process, or practice that is unique and adds value to meeting the needs of the City, both internally and externally.
The goal of the awards is to foster innovation among City residents at regional and ward levels within Johannesburg, and to recognise and reward individuals, teams, and community organisations for innovations suitable to be supported for local-level pilot projects;
Entries for the competition will need to address some or all of the following criteria:
- Address significant issues or bottlenecks experienced by residents daily.
- Propose novel approaches, practices, or processes to enhance the delivery of government services to residents.
- Cut government costs related to theft, poor governance, vandalism, corruption, etc.
- Enhance residents’ safety (reduce crime, gender-based violence, etc.), health (address hunger, provide home care, etc.), or overall well-being (mental and physical wellness).
- Foster local economic development (create community jobs, support small business growth, etc.).
- Promote cleaner streets and improve neighbourhood beautification.
- Encourage recycling to reduce waste and support environmental sustainability.
Idea Selection Process:
Shortlisted finalists will need to further develop their proposals into presentations and the selection committee will then review presentations and narrow down the choices to 14 finalists.
The finalists will have their concepts promoted on City of Johannesburg social media platforms. And local communities will be able to vote for the best innovation, with their preferences carrying weight in the final decision
A technical adjudication committee will then determine the finalists and winners.
Winners Awards:
There are three categories of winners, with approximately seven regional winners:
First Placed concept is to receive a pilot project funding valued at R300,000. There will be two Second Placed concepts that will receive pilot project funding of R200,000 each, and four Third Place concepts are to receive pilot project funding of R100,000 each.
