TechConnect Announces 9th Annual Smart Cities Startup Challenge Winners, Pitch Participants

SUMMERVILLE, S.C., March 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TechConnect today announced winners of the ninth annual Smart Cities Startup Challenge. The challenge highlights the nation's most promising innovations which align with funding priorities from the US Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the US Department of Transportation Smart Cities Challenge, and the National Defense Strategy.

"Each year, innovation evolves and the priorities for our municipal, defense, and funding partners change; but one thing always remains: the caliber of startups we see paints a very positive picture for our future society," said Jennifer Rocha, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, TechConnect. "We are honored to recognize and showcase the winners of this Challenge and to shine a light on the early-stage innovation solving some of our nation's most pressing crises."

Winners of the Challenge will pitch at Smart Cities Connect on April 5-6, 2022, as well as receive a free one-year membership to the Resilient Infrastructure + Secure Energy (RISE) Consortium™. RISE members enjoy faster contracting speed, access to more opportunities, market expansion into the Department of Defense, and access to both DoD and industry network stakeholders.

Subject areas of interest to judges fell into five primary categories: community engagement, smart mobility, urban infrastructure, urban operations, and digital transformation. More than 170 startups applied from which 45 earned the opportunity to pitch and connect with potential funders and partners on-site. 

Panel judges range in expertise spanning municipal leadership in seven states, six defense and government components, three investment firms, and six corporations. The breadth of reviewers further indicates how many technology areas and applications smart city innovators touch and their myriad applications.

For more information about this Challenge, visit https://spring.smartcitiesconnect.org/innovation_challenge.html. To attend the pitch sessions and meet the winners in April, visit https://spring.smartcitiesconnect.org/register.html.

About TechConnect
With 25+ years of experience connecting emerging technologies with unique funding and partnership opportunities, TechConnect boasts the most robust research and innovation network in the world. It employs a broad scope of tools to deliver top technologies, including open innovation programs, conferences, and open-access publications. Each year, TechConnect prospects, vets, and connects thousands of emerging technologies with corporate, investment, municipal, and national defense clients. TechConnect is a division of Advanced Technology International. For more information, please visit https://techconnect.org

About the RISE Consortium
The mission of the Resilient Infrastructure + Secure Energy (RISE) Consortium™ is to address the energy security and climate crises by reimagining how we use, generate, transport, and store energy and how we build efficient, modern, resilient infrastructure. It is a national consortium whose members work with the federal government to accelerate energy and infrastructure modernization. Advanced Technology International manages the RISE Consortium. For more information, please visit https://www.rise-consortium.org.

SOURCE ATI (Advanced Technology International)