Smart City Initiative

"Long Beach and Throne Labs have partnered to deploye free-to-use, high-tech restrooms at four locations around the city as part of a four-month pilot program to assess how well they provide the public with a safe, clean, private toilet when nature calls." +Press release +LA Times + LAist

Throne proposed the four-month pilot program through the Pitch Long Beach! program!

We have released our 2024 Annual Report for the Technology Planning and Partnerships Division, which manages the City’s Smart City Initiative, data privacy program, and technology strategic planning efforts for implementing emerging technology solutions.

This report highlights the achievements of the City’s innovative technology and data privacy initiatives in the past year and is shared publicly to highlight the City’s progress in delivering valuable technology programs and services to the Long Beach community and ensuring the technology deployed is ethical, responsible and useful. 

The Long Beach Collaboratory (LB Co-Lab) community-driven technology pilot program was recently named a finalist in the Civic Engagement category as part of the 2025 IDC Smart City North America Awards! This award recognizes Long's Beach's best practice example of innovation in community engagement and the use of technology to solve challenges in interesting ways.

Is generative artificial intelligence — or GenAI — merely a dubiously useful, or worse, arguably harmful product? Or is it a profound breakthrough that will revolutionize how we work, live, and co-create? 

The City of Long Beach's recent AI-powered virtual assistant, "Ask Elby," is designed to help residents access city services and information seamlessly. Over the 30-day trial period for Elby, 4,072 Long Beach residents asked Elby a question, and Elby facilitated nearly 7,000 total communications! Common topics included careers, street sweeping, and how to pay your parking ticket.

Cities often ask for community input when brainstorming about improvement projects but Long Beach is testing out a new approach. They're having residents be a part of the entire process from start to finish. KCAL's Rina Nakano shows us how the city believes it's resulting in better outcomes.

The City of Long Beach Technology and Innovation Department (TID) has announced the next cohort of its Long Beach Collaboratory (LB Co-Lab) program, a community-driven civic technology program that pairs community members with City staff to co-design and implement solutions that address community challenges.

In September 2024, our Smart Cities team conducted a series of data privacy community workshops aimed at educating the public of the tools the City has created to promote their digital rights and secure their data privacy. 

"More than ever before, cities are serving as platforms that connect actors inside and outside of government to surface new solutions. And one of the most promising ways city leaders are getting it done is with a twist to an age-old process: procurement."

Partnering is a critical piece of the California city’s strategy for digital transformation, informing its approach to digital equity and civic technology projects. A new digital inclusion plan builds on this approach.

“Smart” cities like Long Beach strive to improve quality of life through data-driven insights. Data makes it possible for the City of Long Beach to more efficiently deploy and operate city services—trash and recycling pick up, public safety initiatives, traffic management, and much more. One way we obtain these insights is by collecting data on residents as they move through routine daily tasks. 

Rain was falling steadily as the group huddled underneath umbrellas outside the Mark Twain Neighborhood Library in Long Beach in early March, equipped with their smartphones and a mission.

Their goal: take a “data walk” around a few blocks of the city to see various technologies — security cameras, public Wi-Fi hotspots, the library self-checkout kiosk — with signs explaining how the city collects residents’ data, how it stores that information, and why.

How much does your city know about you? A lot, it turns out.

As emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technology becomes readily available in workplace operations, the “modern hiring process”is swiftly evolving to prioritize efficiency and equity while retainingthe human element in the hiring and recruitment processes. Companies across various sectors are adopting AI in the workplace and it poses significant opportunities and challenges in its implementation.

The rapid rise of digital services and smart city technology has elevated concerns about privacy in the digital age and government’s role, even as cities from California to Texas take steps to make constituents aware of their digital rights. Earlier this month, Long Beach, Calif., launched an improved version of its Digital Rights Platform, which shows constituents their data privacy and digital rights and information about how the city uses technologies while protecting digital rights.

The City of Long Beach recently launched a new data privacy and digital rights platform as part of its ongoing effort to enhance data privacy, digital rights and transparency. The enhanced digital rights platform, available at longbeach.gov/digitalrights, and accompanying educational signage available at locations throughout the city help further the City's efforts to educate its residents about their digital rights.

In an ongoing effort to enhance data privacy, digital rights, and transparency, the City of  Long Beach Department of Technology and Innovation partnered with California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), to launch the enhanced Digital Rights Platform. During a series of mobile community workshops (data walks), residents had the opportunity to test the platform's new features and learn about the technologies the City deploys and how it uses the data it collects.

Long Beach is excited to join the GovAI Coalition, a network of over 400 public servants from over 150 local, county, and state governments committed to responsible and purposeful artificial intelligence (AI) in the public sector. Led by City of San José, the Coalition released an open letter and a toolkit to help public agencies adopt and implement responsible AI practices. 

Long Beach  is selected as a finalist in the International Data Corporation (IDC) Government Insights’ seventh annual Smart Cities North America Awards for its trailblazing progress in creating and sustaining innovative technology projects in the Civic Engagement category for  LB Co-Lab.

"LB Co-Lab is great for getting the community involved and interacting with the government," Doplemore added. "It's great for these four communities to feel like their voice is heard, and have an opportunity to solve a problem in their community."  

The Technology and Innovation Department in partnership with the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies created a research report, to develop a deeper understanding of the aerospace and technology workforce environment in Long Beach. 

The City recognized the opportunity for a responsible approach to using Generative AI by balancing the benefits and mitigating risks like AI bias, privacy, and cybersecurity. Our Guidance aims to address, promote, and enhance the safe and responsible use of Generative AI in Long Beach. 

Ahead of the Cities Today Institute City Leadership Forum in Long Beach next week, Sarah Wray talks to Lea Eriksen, the city’s technology lead. One of the guiding principles of Long Beach’s Smart City Initiative is to earn public trust in how data and technology are used.

The 2023 Annual Report Community Briefs are short, simple updates on the 2023 Smart City Initiative's efforts produced in a community-friendly and language-accessible format. Share them with community partners or the public.

The Long Beach Collaboratory has been created to provide a new form of citizen engagement where residents can be chosen to join collaborative teams to identify technology pilot projects for their neighborhoods.

In Long Beach, we've developed a community-centered suite of programs and projects that places people at the heart of the Smart City Initiative. 

Check out the 2023 Smart Cities Annual Report here to read about our impact over the last year. (Press release)

The Long Beach Collaboratory (LB Co-Lab) technology training program was recognized as a finalist for the IDC Smart Cities North America Awards in the 'Civic Engagement' category. The awards recognize how Long Beach uses tech and innovation to meet the needs of our community. Visit http://bit.ly/3JKtpvn to vote for the LB Co-Lab by March 31!

We conducted a series of Long Beach Data Walks through Downtown to showcase the City's emerging technologies, data privacy policies, and the new Digital Rights Platform! We are now excited to share what we heard from you and other community members! 

Wondering what the tech our Smart City program is up to? Wait no further and read the newly released Smart Cities Annual Report here! (Press release)

The City of Long Beach has launched Pitch Long Beach! – a new program that allows companies to submit project ideas to help improve City services. 

The City of Long Beach recently rolled out the Equitable Data Collection Toolkit, a guide for Long Beach City staff to equitably design and distribute surveys. 

How data-driven cities maintained momentum, delivered results, and achieved the What Works Cities Certification.

Congratulations to the winners of the FIRST ever Long Beach AR Challenge!

Please join us for the first ever Long Beach Augmented Reality (AR) Exhibition in Downtown Long Beach from Sunday, August 8 to Sunday, August 22. 

Developer community invited to develop AR applications that will help re-activate Downtown Long Beach

Staff from the Technology and Innovation Department (TID) are currently developing the Smart City Strategic Initiative in collaboration with key stakeholders in other City Departments.

Municipal needs this time around include calls from one Southern California city for solutions in the areas of housing, city hiring and communication.