A Jacksonville organization focused on helping government and the private sector collaborate on data sharing and new technologies could be in line for state funding if a plan by a local legislator is adopted.
Jacksonville-based Smart North Florida is looking to serve as a prototype for other regions throughout the state after its involvement with things like funding a pilot program between Clay County and an artificial intelligence mapping company.
A bill proposed by Rep. Wyman Duggan (R-Jacksonville) would help with that goal. The legislation, House Bill 835, would set up grants administered by Enterprise Florida for smart regions — four-county areas with a nonprofit that encourages knowledge transfers and incubates startups that work on government data projects.
While there are other smart city programs throughout the state, Smart North Florida is the only existing organization pulling together multiple counties into a region.
The bill does not lay out how much organizations would receive, and Duggan said he expects those details to be ironed out as the bill moves through committees and the appropriations.
The goal is to have other regions throughout the state mimic what Smart North Florida has done since the nonprofit launched last year: pairing municipalities with startups to help government leaders use data to make informed decisions across a seven-county region.
"It gives municipalities that are not major metropolitan areas the opportunity to leverage innovation," Smart North Florida Executive Director Clayton Levins said. "One of the things Smart North Florida is able to do for these smaller public sector entities is to offset, or augment, the cost burden of implementing new technology."
When Nassau County adopted RoadBotics as its road management company last year, for example, it did so after the Pennsylvania-based company executed a pilot program in Clay County that was partially funded by the North Florida Transportation Planning Organization — the organization that led to Smart North Florida.
A group of Northeast Florida transportation data leaders met with legislative leaders earlier this month in an attempt to move the legislation forward.
“Our interactions in Tallahassee (were) ‘Yes, Northeast Florida is poised to be at the forefront of the overall concept. (But,) much of what we believe is the ability to scale it statewide,” North Florida TPO Executive Director Jeff Sheffield told the Business Journal. “At the end of the day, with this bill, and the ability for Smart North Florida to apply for Enterprise Florida, and pilot the full ecosystem, the opportunity presents itself for other regions to scale on a larger footprint.”
Drew Messer, co-founder of Jacksonville-based Urban SDK, was among those who made the trek to Tallahassee. Urban SDK built the North Florida Integrated Data Exchange in conjunction with the North Florida TPO and Smart North Florida.
Messer's company collects, analyzes and synthesizes data to make it digestible for elected officials and policy makers. Urban SDK was founded in Jacksonville but has provided transportation data for governments across 10 states and Canada.
"The point of it all is to establish centers of excellence, so they could grab some of the state funding, test innovate technology solutions for the public sector and share those (lessons) across the state (with) an innovation type of approach,” Messer said. “(It’s) how we start to modernize and digitally transform state and local government.”
