City and County of San Francisco

The Startup in Residence (STIR) program builds on the success of the Entrepreneurship in Residence program, expanding San Francisco’s one-city model to a regional multi-city scale.  The STIR program aims to create a replicable and scalable model to build regional networks of city governments that accelerate the commercialization of cutting edge innovations in technology services to the public sector and expand entrepreneurial and investment opportunities and government collaboration in the participating regions.

There is a critical and untapped opportunity for regions to catalyze public-private sector collaborations that drive economic growth.  The core of the STIR program would create, at scale, regional government technology-focused start-up ecosystems where cities, entrepreneurs, investors and civic institutions collaborate, share best practices, and leverage their unique assets and resources to drive local and regional economic development and build a regional, connected, and participatory regional culture of civic innovation.

STIR will bring talented entrepreneurs and start-ups from across the world together with senior city department officials at regional city governments to provide insight into civic pain points and offer the start-ups an opportunity to develop government client-focused prototypes and new product and service offerings that solve major civic challenges.  The program sources great ideas from innovators to build solutions that address high priority areas determined by each city, such as transportation, health care, emergency services, public safety, disaster management, environment, and infrastructure, and it helps the cities to achieve one of the following goals: (1) increased revenues, (2) increased cost savings, (3) improved citizen experience, and (4) more lives saved.