New York City’s government found out just how complex the challenges to its resilience can become when Superstorm Sandy hit in late 2012, as lives, homes and power supply were lost and the scale of not just recovering but preparing for future challenges in the largest US city became evident.
While the work to fix known problems with known solutions continues, the city’s Economic Development Corporation noted that in many cases the best solutions to problems come from unexpected places. In an increasingly interconnected world where progress comes from everywhere, traditional ways of surfacing problem sets, prioritizing and then implementing solutions are not as effective.
That thinking is at the heart of the new $30 million competition intended to help small businesses in New York become more resilient: a competition called “Resiliency Innovation for a Stronger Economy” or RISE: NYC.
“There hasn’t been something like this done before that we know of,” Vice President at NYC EDC and New York energy scene fixture David Gilford said in discussing the new competition, which wraps up its first stage of accepting applications on February 28. “We hope to see a diverse mix of unique proposals from around the world.”
The competition is intended to surface both the problems that need solving among small businesses in areas impacted by Sandy and the possible solutions from around the world, then match them leveraging the insight of an advisory panel stuffed with bold name experts. Eligible categories include energy, telecommunications and building systems, such as electrical equipment, fire protection and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems.
“We’re hoping to see a variety of technologies that are more cost-effective and have a bigger impact than standard resiliency investment, thereby jumpstarting the private sector to scale projects across the city,” Gilford said.
The initial round of application forms are not in the usual lowest-cost bid format for city government requests for proposals, but are more open requests for interest. Funded via the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program administered through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, an initial screen of the proposals will be run. By late spring, NYC EDC expects to respond to successful applications which will then go through further evaluation before awards are made.
Gilford anticipates that the successful bids will come from companies fully equipped to do business in New York City’s often complex operating environment, and will be able to meet the federal compliance necessary to obtain funding for their demonstration projects.
Cities have become leaders in addressing the impacts of climate change, and New York City has been particularly high-profile, with former Mayor Bloomberg now the UN special envoy for cities and climate change and New York University launching its Energy Wise City conference this month. “We owe it to the thousands of small businesses impacted by Hurricane Sandy to do everything we can to help strengthen them against future storms and the effects of climate change,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in announcing the competition. “This is a critical step in the process to harness the greatest resiliency innovations from around the world.”
To find out more about the competition or to apply, visit the RISE: NYC site here.
Full Disclosure: Peter Gardett served on the board of New York Energy Week with David Gilford. Gilford has previously contributed to Breaking Energy, and was named one of the site’s Top Ten Young New York Energy Leaders in 2013.
