I just got word on the following opportunity. I’d love to see some Minnesota cities apply.

Cities across the world can now apply for year-two of the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge – a 100-city, $50 million grant program that furnishes expert advice from IBM consultants to 100 progressive municipalities.

I asked the planners about using a county focus versus a city focus since so much broadband planning seems to be at a countywide level – and they were OK with it. Here’s their caveat…

Both county and city leaders are welcome to apply as long as the topic they want to cover is under that region’s jurisdiction. For example, a city in California wouldn’t list social services as a topic, since that is covered at the county level.

And here’s more info on the overall project…

This grant program provides progressive cities with access to IBM’s top talent, who devote weeks of their time analyzing unique opportunities and challenges facing urban centers. Issues addressed include jobs, health, public safety, transportation, social services, recreation, education, energy and sustainability. After conferring with officials, citizens, businesses, academics and community leaders, the IBM teams recommend steps to make the delivery of services to citizens more efficient and innovative. The value of the talent provided for an individual engagement in a given city is approximately $400,000.

The program is already helping cities that engaged with IBM in 2011. For example, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina is now planning its budgets and improvements with all its towns and villages in a more coordinated way. St. Louis, Missouri has hired officials to better share of information among agencies involved in criminal justice so that they can make better legal decisions. And Edmonton in Canada is using data more effectively to improve traffic and pedestrian safety.

In order to be eligible for the IBM grant, city mayors need to apply before December 16, and the application is online: https://smartercitieschallenge.org/reg.do.

To find out more, please visit http://smartercitieschallenge.org or http://www.youtube.com/user/citizenIBM for videos from some of the 2011 Smarter Cities Challenge grant winners.