About Innovation
The Office of Innovation was established in 2007 to identify improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of City services and business processes. The primary functions of the Office are to improve City operations, manage special projects, and lead major initiatives, while promoting a culture of innovation. The Office has also launched several ground-breaking programs.
In FY 2016, the Office launched a smart cities program, SmartSA, to harness the power of data, technology, and community to improve the quality of life for San Antonio residents. In FY 2018, the Office launched CivTechSA, with local co-working company Geekdom, to partner students, entrepreneurs, and startups with City staff to co-create customized tech solutions to civic challenges and grow civically-minded tech talent. In FY 2020, the Office launched Innovation Academy and R&D League. Innovation Academy is an intensive training program for City staff to develop problem solving consultants embedded within City departments. The R&D League creates cross-sector, multi-disciplinary teams that utilize scientific methods & data to investigate new ideas, facilitate evidence-based policymaking, and explore the frontier of innovation for our 1.5 million residents.”
Balanced Innovation Portfolio
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Directed
Sharing/Top-down
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Certainty
Exploiting/Incremental |
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Uncertainty
Exploring/Radical
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UNDIRECTED
Responding/Bottom-up
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*Adapted from the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI)- a global forum that connects, convenes and advises leaders/practitioners in government, academia, NGOs & industry on public sector innovation, funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Union and the Organization for Economic Co-opertation and Development.