CityNudge Accelerator

Making behavioral innovation possible for every city

Water shortages, electricity cuts, and non-compliant taxpayers are emerging as critical challenges for cities around the world. These challenges hinder cities’ ability to improve service delivery to their citizens in a financially sustainable way, thus making it even harder for them to transition to sustainable development in the face of climate and demographic change.

Proven solutions for mitigating these challenges exist and have gained wide recognition, but governments in the developing world have been hesitant to adopt them due to the risk of failure and the upfront costs of innovation. ideas42 — a world-renowned behavioral design lab— is therefore offering cities and other local governments a way to experiment with the latest innovations in resource conservation and revenue generation with no downside financial risk. If these issues resonate with you, and your city is ready to commit to being at the forefront of innovation, partner with us in this interesting journey.

Questions? Contact us at cities@ideas42.org

 

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. ideas42 and city officials will jointly identify relevant domain(s) of value to the City- electricity, water or/and tax revenue

2. ideas42 staff, in close consultation with the City, will design behavioral “nudges” to achieve impact.

3. Upon meeting the desired level of impact, a predetermined portion — in the form of cost saving or revenue enhancement — would be shared with ideas42 to cover the costs incurred.

4. In the scenario of the desired impact not being met, there will be no obligation on the City to incur any cost of the intervention. The foreseeable cost would be in the form of personnel expenses of ideas42 staff and project implementation costs.

5. ideas42 will also assist the City to scale up the intervention, if desired, and to disseminate the success of the intervention to the global international community. This communication could be in the form of press releases, blogs, white paper, reports, etc.


Is eager to explore innovative and low-risk ways to solve water/electricity issues they face

Sends regular communications to citizens or customers

Is able and willing to make light-touch changes to their communications

Routinely collects data relating to the area of interest (e.g. water/electricity consumption or citizen tax payment rates)

Is comfortable analyzing data or sharing with us for baseline calculations and evaluation of outcomes

Has household level data on water and/or electricity usage and tax collections

Appreciates the value of data-driven innovation at every level of the organization


If this is an idea that resonates with you and excites you, reach out to us at cities@ideas42.org

We will schedule an introductory call and a possible site visit to understand the challenges and discuss potential solutions with city officials

Upon thorough discussion and if our objectives align, both parties (ideas42 and the City) will sign a Memorandum of Understanding to officially start the project