accelerated grant cycle<\/a>, with six dedicated to improving city agencies whose initiatives were made more difficult by the coronavirus pandemic. In one project, the city\u2019s online licensing and inspection system will be outfitted with a new online chat function and screen-sharing tool for customers to troubleshoot the application process from the safety of their homes. The city’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, meanwhile, will receive funding to partner with local immigrant organizations to design a user-centric voter guide for multilingual city residents who might not feel comfortable voting in-person because of the pandemic.<\/p>\nAlongside the COVID-19-focused projects, the fire department will use 360-degree cameras to improve investigations and reduce the amount of time that firefighters have to spend inside burning buildings.<\/p>\n
Each of the projects, which also integrate initiatives from city’s prisons, behavioral health, and domestic violence departments, will receive up to $7,500 to complete their projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth for the COVID-19 cycle and for our normal Innovation Fund cycle, the goal is to seed innovation across as many diverse departments as we can,\u201d Eliza Pollack, Philadelphia\u2019s Director of Innovation, told StateScoop.<\/p>\n
Pollack said that this latest grant cycle, which is administered and managed by the city\u2019s Office of Innovation and Technology, is an \u201caccelerated\u201d version of the normal cycle that was abruptly put on pause earlier this year because of the pandemic. Pollack and her team resumed the grant process in June, but only one department \u2014 the fire department \u2014 said it was still prepared to complete its project.<\/p>\n
So the city launched the new grant cycle, focused on solving pandemic-related issues in \u201cunique ways,\u201d said Pollack, adding that the criteria for selection isn\u2019t that different from typical grant cycles.<\/p>\n
\u201cAwarding Innovation Fund grants is always exciting, but this year, it felt especially impactful and important to be able to help departments pivot in the COVID era,\u201d Pollack said in a press release. \u201cWe were overwhelmed by, and proud of, all the submissions we received. It\u2019s a heartening reminder of the dedication and investment of public servants and how much they really want to respond to the needs of residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other projects this year include an outdoor refrigerator for produce from the city\u2019s prison orchard, outdoor water bottle refill stations and floor decals in grocery stores and bodegas that display domestic violence hotline information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The latest round of funding in Philadelaphia’s Innovation Fund includes seven projects, many redesigned to meet agency needs during the pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":35035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_grayscale_images":true,"grayscale_contrast":0,"sponsored_content":false,"display_author_bio":true,"story_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4676],"tags":[23,1209,1573,7346],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4698],"class_list":["post-35026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city","tag-innovation","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-office-of-innovation-and-technology","tag-coronavirus-pandemic","author-ryan-johnston"],"yoast_head":"\n
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