News Release - Mayor Warren, Community Leaders Welcome IBM Smarter Cities Challenge Team to Rochester

City of Rochester

News Release

(Tuesday, Oct 13, 2015) – Mayor Lovely A. Warren, Assembly Majority Leader Joseph D. Morelle, County Executive Maggie Brooks and members of the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative (RMAPI) steering committee welcomed a team of IBM executives to Rochester today to kick off the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge.

Rochester is one of 16 cities selected in a worldwide competition to participate in the 2015 IBM Smarter Cities Challenge, a pro-bono initiative of the technology giant to help cities across the world tackle critical challenges through direct consultation and recommendations.

“Poverty is Rochester’s greatest challenge and, quite frankly, it is Rochester’s greatest shame,” said Mayor Warren. “It is simply mind boggling when you try to comprehend how and why a city so rich in resources can have so many people living in poverty. This is why I am pleased to welcome this team of experts from IBM to Rochester today and wish them luck as they begin to unravel this vexing problem. Through the Smarter Cities Challenge, IBM’s experts will move us closer to our goal of developing the most efficient and effective methods possible to create more jobs, safer more vibrant neighborhoods and provide better educational opportunities for our children – and ultimately provide our citizens with a stairway out of poverty.”

“IBM is proud of the united effort by the Mayor, city leaders and citizens to address this critical issue deeply impacting communities across Rochester,” said Martin Laird, Senior Program Manager for IBM and a Smarter Cities Challenge Team Leader. “Our team, working closely with the city, will apply their deep expertise to help develop a plan to fight poverty and improve the lives of Rochester residents.”

“Over the past ten months, the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative has worked in partnership with the all facets of our community to thoroughly examine the many barriers confronting families and individuals living in poverty and develop a plan that will confront these challenges head-on,” said Assembly Majority Leader Morelle. “Throughout this process it became apparent that there was a critical need for fundamental changes within the systems, service programs and policies that serve those impacted by poverty. Thanks to our partners at City Hall and the generous support and expertise of IBM we can now begin the process of transforming how we deliver these services and uplift those most in need.”

“As the community’s largest social service provider, Monroe County is committed to providing thousands of children and their families with improved access to services and I am optimistic the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge will help us construct a better system,” said County Executive Brooks. “I want to thank Mayor Warren for bringing this team to Rochester today and I am looking forward to working with its members over the coming weeks as we search for a better way to help these families lift themselves out of poverty.”

“The United Way is privileged to be the convener of the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative (RMAPI), and we are delighted that the work of RMAPI helped the City of Rochester receive an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant,” Dr. Leonard Brock, Director of the Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative at the United Way and Fran Weisberg, President and CEO of the United Way of Greater Rochester said in joint statement. “Throughout RMAPI’s workgroup process a few central themes continuously rose to the top. One of these was the need for an integrated system of social supports for people impacted by poverty. The problem of a siloed system of services is not unique to Rochester, but the opportunity to solve the problem is unique because of the partnership with IBM. We look forward to working with IBM over the coming weeks to begin to address this challenge and formulate a path forward to a more connected community.”

Mayor Warren has identified poverty as its most critical challenge. For the next three weeks, a team of IBM experts will embed themselves in the community to study the issues that contribute to the city’s poverty rates and the existing agencies and programs that seek to reduce poverty. They will then deliver a set of recommendations on how these agencies can achieve better results and provide citizens living in poverty with a path to self sufficiency.

Mayor Warren asked IBM to help design a unified, efficient strategy, using data across six key areas of jobs, education, housing, health, safe neighborhoods and judicial reform to guide families currently receiving assistance from several agencies and provide a data-driven “stairway out of poverty.”

According to a report by the Rochester Community Foundation, Rochester’s poverty rates are among the highest in the nation and getting worse. The Foundation issued a dire report on Rochester’s poverty rate in 2013 and a 2015 update to the report showed the rates growing higher.

The 2015 update found:

  • The Poverty Rate increased from 31 to 33 percent since 2013.
  • The Childhood Poverty increased from 46 to more than 50 percent, giving Rochester the highest such rate among comparably sized metro areas.
  • The Extreme Poverty rate is now 16 percent, giving Rochester the highest such rate among comparably sized metro areas.
  • Rochester remains the 5th poorest principal city among the nation’s top 75 metro areas and the 2nd poorest among comparably sized cities.

The Smarter Cities Challenge is IBM’s largest philanthropic initiative, with contributions to date valued at more than $50 million. Since 2010, IBM has deployed 700 top experts to help 116 cities around the world. In 2015, the program was extended for a fifth year, with additional projects to be deployed through 2016. By the end of 2016, IBM will have made similar Smarter Cities Challenge grants to more than 130 cities worldwide chosen from more than 600 applicants, with nearly 800 of IBM’s top experts delivering pro bono services valued at more than $66 million.

In addition to Mr. Laird, the Smarter Cites Challenge Rochester team members will include: Andrew Bewick; Sunita Menon; Alice Sidhu; and Walter Szyperski.

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