SASCHA HASELMAYER AND CARINA LOPES CITYMART GERMANY, ASHOKA FELLOW 2011 http://www.citymart.com/ https://www.ashoka.org/fellow/sascha-haselmayer
PROBLEM Five percent of the world’s economy is tied up in procurements by local city governments. Most of the times, cities ask businesses and the citizen sector to transform and innovate, but do not include any changes within their governance and operations to improve transparency. The marketplace between innovations and the cities that need them is murky. There are few clear channels for learning about new innovations, or clear paths to procure and implement them, either because of lack of political will, or proven examples to encourage adoption. Meanwhile, cites are under financial pressure and need to source low-cost systems solutions regardless of where they come from.
IMPACT Through 99 Challenges published by cities through Citymart, they have discovered more than 10.000 new solutions, eliminated re-inventions and scaled proven urban and social innovations across cities around the world. Today, 7.5 Million citizens benefit from solutions delivered 3x faster through Citymart– with 33 Million benefiting indirectly.
SOLUTION Citymart offers a unique set of services to enable cities to identify, evaluate, and adopt game-changing solutions, which contribute to the creation of more sustainable, resilient, entrepreneurial and responsive communities. Citymart helps city governments to become more open, agile and empathic by opening their procurement processes to be impact focused and invest less public resources to greater societal effect. For example, through the “Procurement by challenge” methodology and the Procurement 2.0 Platform, Citymart provides complete market insight about available solutions, gives access to start-ups and small businesses to contracting opportunities, and avoids the re-invention of services at high cost in time and money by sourcing solutions available elsewhere. Citymart partners with the city to build internal evidence on the impact of the methodology in the city, and to inspire and support (through institutional capacity building) broader subsequent policy and organizational changes. The partnership involves sharing risk for larger impact and includes the implementation of a number of challenges to begin opening up procurement and introduce the methods of challenges to pilot or procure solutions for the community. A series of preparation activities are usually foreseen, such as roadshows and meetups with local start-ups, innovators and business to identify problems, needs and opportunities suitable for challenges.
Every dollar procured through Citymart on average is expected to deliver a ROI of 200% - in cost savings, transformative solutions, avoided re-inventions and local job creation / entrepreneurship.
VISION Sascha’s vision is to spread innovation into cities by strengthening their innovation capacity, improve governance by sharing methods and solutions to engage communities, and radically alter the way cities deliver much-needed services. In addition to the various services offered, Citymart leads #citiesshare alliance, a global movement promoting a more agile approach to problem-solving in cities and the sharing of solutions and methods among cities, including more than 82 cities and a growing number of supporting organizations and businesses such as the Knight Foundation, Bloomberg Philantropies, Nesta, the Future Cities Catapult, the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative etc.
ROADMAP SASCHA HASELMAYER
With the support of
ROADMAP SASCHA HASELMAYER SCALING STRATEGY To scale Citymart, Sascha adopts an organic growth approach, expanding operations in new cities where the local administration is interested in a common and shared-risk partnership with Citymark aimed at unlocking local innovation potential, as well as sourcing global solutions. For this, a clear commitment from the city to open up procurement, as well as (co-) finance the set-up of a local office of Citymart is necessary. SHOWCASE
FIND PARTNERS
SCALE
MEASURE LOCAL IMPACT
SCALING CITYMART IN SPAIN Citymart started operations in Spain in 2011 and established its headquarters in Barcelona. It has worked with 10 cities across Spain, among which are Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Madrid. For example, since 2011, Barcelona has successfully completed 12 Citymart challenges in areas such as real-time traffic monitoring, smart waste management, contactless transactions in tourism, and preventing youth unemployment. Ashoka Spain has been supporting Sascha to scale the impact of Citymart by facilitating showcasing and networking opportunities in Spain, such as in the major “THIS WORKS” event held on March 9, 2015 in the Spanish Senate. .
SCALING CITYMART IN ITALY On the occasion of “Innovate to Restart” event in Milan on February 26, 2015, Sascha Haselmayer initiated various conversations with potential partners, in particular in Rome. Moreover, with the support of his local advisor Davide Agazzi, managing director at RENA and policy advisor at the municipality of Milan, Sascha met various potential enablers, supporters and partners interested in learning more about Citymart and in supporting the local expansion. During his visit in Italy Sascha had meetings with public institutions, startups, enterprises and consulting companies, such as ActionAid Italia, Turin Municipality, Human Foundation, the Cabinet of Ministry of Education, Top-IX Torino, Ecosistemi AGID, Agency for Digital Italy, Digital Magics. Over the next years, Ashoka Italy will support Sasha in following-up with these potential partners and in identifying the best strategy to scale Citymart.
SCALING CITYMART IN GREECE On April 29-30 Ashoka organised the “Innovation for Society” Summit in Athens where Sascha’s colleague Carina Lopes presented Citymart and raised awareness on the importance of transparency and innovation at the city level, encouraging cities to reconsider their strategies and operation modes. With the support of Ashoka Greece, Sascha and Carina are now mapping the local ecosystem and identifying potential partners in Greece such as the Vouli Watch. While it is still premature to discuss the scaling of Citymart in Greece, it is worth mentioning that Athens was selected as one of the five winners of 2014 Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge with Synathina project, a Public Platform for Engaged Citizens, and Athens and Thessaloniki were both selected to the 100 Resilient Cities Network. This could be a great opportunity for Citymart to further expand in Greece and Citymart is currently discussing with the city of Athens potential synergies.
Should you be interested in helping Sascha to scale in one of these three countries or partner with him, write to Ashoka Spain – comunicacion@ashoka.org, Ashoka Italy - italy@ashoka.org or Ashoka Greece – ashokagreece@ashoka.org !
With the support of