PITTSBURGH, PA (November 7, 2019) Mayor William Peduto, the City of Pittsburgh Department of Innovation & Performance, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh, and Allegheny County Airport Authority today announced the fifth cohort of the PGH Lab program.
PGH Lab connects local startup companies with the City of Pittsburgh and local authorities, and independent institutions to explore new ways to use technology and innovative solutions to help improve city operations. The program provides an opportunity for local startups to test their beta-stage products and services in a real-world environment for three-four months.
The City of Pittsburgh and the participating authorities have successfully completed four cycles and engaged 21 local startups, putting forth a variety of technological and innovative solutions ranging from waste management and composting to business processes and automation to immigrant inclusion initiatives.
For the fifth cycle, three different startups will be joining PGH Lab. Through a competitive process the startups were chosen to test their solutions with the City of Pittsburgh and the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh. To ensure the startups gain real time feedback on their products and services, they have been matched with a “City Champion,” a government employee that will work with the startups through the duration of the pilot project. The solutions involved in this cycle focus on the use of data to improve city operations.
“We look forward to participating in PGH Lab 5.0., we're particularly excited to have an opportunity to develop innovative solutions to ongoing challenges and to create a product that will help connect our immigrant residents with useful services and products,” said Caster Binion, Executive Director of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh.
“We’re looking forward to designing a data visualization tool that supports public engagement around questions concerning equitable housing access. At beamdata, we believe making data easily accessible and transparent is key to fueling people-powered movements and bottom-up innovation.” said Bhavini Patel, CEO & co-founder of Beamdata.
The City of Pittsburgh and participating authorities welcome the fifth cohort of startups that will utilize Pittsburgh as their urban lab:
Allvision IO is a geospatial analytics company comprised of a team of LiDAR, machine learning and photogrammetry veterans with strong ties into the world of autonomous vehicles. Allvision IO turns 3D data into digital twins of everything visible from the sidewalk, road, or rail. The company facilitates assets inventories, vegetation management, as well as detecting infrastructure changes faster and more economically. After their data collection process, useable data is then made accessible on the cloud, allowing experts and non-experts alike to work with harvested insights from any location. Allvision IO will be working with the department of Innovation & Performance on a street lights inventory.
Beamdata is a civic tech company that operates at the intersection of social issues and data. The team works with local governments and nonprofits to tackle community-level problems by building data tools that guide equitable impact and decision-making. The company will pilot a data visualization tool that improves information transparency and citizen engagement with the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh.
Bestie is a social recommendation platform that takes a new, profile-centric approach to sharing useful products, professionals, and places with others. The Bestie platform allows individuals to discover recommendations from friends or curate guides to share their expertise with the community. Bestie will be partnering with the Housing Authority to create guides of useful resources for residential communities.
The startup companies will be pilot testing with the City of Pittsburgh and the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh for the next three months.
For news and updates, visit the PGH Lab website, follow PGH Lab on Twitter at @PGH_Lab or the Innovation & Performance Medium.
Contact: Annia Aleman – PGH Lab Program Manager at annia.aleman@pittsburghpa.gov
