YOUR IDEAS

Everyone is invited to participate in Smart Oakland. Now that you're here, Smart Oakland is committed to helping you help your city. To this end, we've designed a three-step process that begins with your idea.

How it Works

1. The US Dept. of Transportation will award one American mid-size city $50 million. How could your city use those funds to improve safety, enhance mobility and address climate change with smart transportation solutions? What do you think your city should do? Whether you have a big idea or a pressing concern, take the first step and let us know what you're thinking by making a Comment.* You can do so anonymously (no log in required) or by identifying yourself through a number of different platforms (Google, OpenID, WordPress etc.);
2. When Comments consist of original ideas or concerns, your city will do one of two things:
1. Request clarification and additional information and encouraging others to chime in; or
2. Promote your idea to a Post; we call those posts that are based on crowdsourced participant contributions "Sandcastles" (after all, we are all playing here in a virtual sandbox);
3. As you and others assemble and mold your Sandcastle, your city is evaluating its progress against the US DOT's "Vision Elements" and its own "Values and Priorities"; those that measure up against both are rewarded with a Page. Unlike Posts, Pages are highly structured. Assembling and molding gives way to a kind of polishing as your singular idea moves through and reacts on the thirteen sections prescribed by the US DOT. With a little bit of lucky and a sufficient amount of time and hard work, the result of this process is a compelling and, at times, technical narrative.

Not every Comment will become a Post and not every Post will earn a Page. But given this ladder of development, there is now a legitimate chance that your idea will become something truly valuable and precious--like a grain of sand destined to become a pearl. Smart cities do not go looking for pearls; on the contrary, they make them (Proposal).

*All comments are moderated.