San Francisco, California Mayor Edwin M. Lee, in collaboration with the White House and other strategic partners, have launched the city’s Entrepreneurship-in-Residence (EIR) program. The program will select talented entrepreneurial teams and help them develop technology-enabled products and services that can capitalize on the $142 billion public sector market. Interested entrepreneurs can apply through a website established by the city.
The program plans to attract world-class entrepreneurs and technologists by providing them with direct access to government needs and opportunities, staff and their expertise, in addition to product development, ramp-up support, and insights into a gold mine of government problems and opportunities through the City and County of San Francisco.
According to the mayor, the program was inspired by president Obama’s call, “We’ve got to have the brightest minds to help solve our biggest challenges.”
San Francisco’s EIR program will offer selected teams mentorship from senior public leaders across the mayor’s office and San Francisco departments and from private sector leaders with experience at companies such as McKinsey & Company, Nokia, NBC Universal, General Electric, Yahoo!, and Goldman Sachs. The program expects to select 3 to 5 teams and announce the selected teams in early October, during San Francisco’s Innovation Month. The program will run 16 weeks from mid-October, 2013 through mid-February, 2014.
The mayor says that San Francisco is the “innovation capital of the world,” and that this program will further those goals. “We need the top entrepreneurs to work with us on opportunities that are actual pain points and needs of government,” he said.
