Item - 2019.GL6.27

The General Government and Licensing Committee:

1.  Directed the Chief Information Officer, the General Manager, Economic Development and Culture, the Chief Purchasing Officer, and the Director, Civic Innovation Office to:

a.  review and identify the operating costs and associated benefits of implementing a permanent Startup in Residence Program for the City of Toronto or joining the Municipal Innovation Exchange or both;

b.  compare the benefits of the Startup in Residence Program with the benefits from the other innovative partnership and procurement programs currently being implemented in the City of Toronto; and

c.  report to the General Government and Licensing Committee at its meeting on October 7, 2019 with recommendations concerning whether the City of Toronto should also implement a permanent Startup in Residence Program or join the Municipal Innovation Exchange or both.

The purpose of this report is to respond to the General Government and Licensing Committee's direction for staff to consider developing a Startup in Residence (STIR) Program or to consider joining the existing Municipal Information Exchange program. The report further outlines and highlights innovative procurement initiatives already in progress in the City of Toronto and recommends that staff report back in the second quarter of 2020 on the assessment of the costs and benefits of implementing a STIR Program, as compared to the benefits from the existing innovative partnership and procurement programs currently being implemented.

The City of Toronto is committed to making procurement faster, more flexible, more inclusive, and easier to understand. The City also aims to enable a greater diversity of firms to develop new solutions that can help the City solve pressing civic challenges. One potential solution is a STIR Program, already adopted by many cities, which would aim to assist the City in rapidly addressing civic challenges where a solution is not readily available and success is not necessarily guaranteed. To this extent, the City has already undertaken innovative procurement initiatives that produce similar benefits to a STIR Program.

The Civic Innovation Office and the Purchasing and Materials Management Division (PMMD) have developed an Invitation to Partner (ITP) procurement approach. ITP was based on the STIR Program and provides an opportunity for proponents to collaborate with City staff and residents to co-create a solution to a civic challenge. In addition to the ITP, the City of Toronto supports Civic Hall Toronto, a program that strengthens the civic technology ecosystem in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) by incubating solutions for various civic challenges through collaboration between the government and Toronto's technology community. Finally, PMMD is also implementing category management, which will leverage the City's consolidated purchasing power to find the best possible values in the marketplace and further foster innovation.

As the current innovative procurement initiatives deliver similar benefits as a STIR Program, City staff require time to assess the beneficial outcomes of these procurement initiatives before further efforts and new programs are considered. Implementing a new program may hinder the progression and focus on the existing initiatives. It is therefore strongly recommended to focus City efforts on the existing innovative procurement programs through ITP and Civic Hall Toronto and that a new STIR Program be considered as a part of the 2020 Budget cycle, once these other procurement initiatives have had time to operationally mature.