On the third day of Civic I/O, the government and policy sessions at South by Southwest (SXSW), mayors assumed the role of “Shark Tank” investors.
The mayors of Denver; Orlando, Fla.; and West Sacramento, Calif., joined a panel of tech entrepreneurs to judge startups' proposals for business ideas that help solve a civic problem.
The first-place prize of $10,000 went to RideAlong, a digital tool meant to facilitate safer interactions between police and people with mental illness. While about 3 percent of U.S. adults suffer from a severe mental illness, they make up a quarter to one-half of all fatal law enforcement encounters, according to the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center. The founders of RideAlong hope to prevent such tragic incidents by equipping police with information that will ultimately divert people experiencing a mental health crisis away from the criminal justice system and instead into treatment and other support services.
[For more of this story, written by J.B. Wogan, go to http://www.govtech.com/civic/S...ike-Competition.html]
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