Unleash Your Geek Innovation Challenge

San José's "Unleash Your Geek" challenge, run from 2016 by the Mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation, grew out of the previous mayor's vision of unlocking the city's Silicon Valley community — individuals, corporations, technologies and universities — by asking residents to propose solutions to a different city issue each year, first through open competition and later through university partnerships.

It aimed to promote cross-sector technology collaboration and open innovation at City Hall, and to bring in external partners such as universities and startups to collaboratively address difficult issues while inspiring greater civic engagement across San José.

Applicants submit proposals through a website (charts, budgets, videos or schematics accepted but not required); after early outreach via a public library email list produced few viable entries, the city moved to the HeroX platform (spun off from XPRIZE) and partnered with local universities, particularly San José State, plus civic tech organisations and a mention in the mayor's state of the city address. Each year the challenge focuses on a different city issue, with city staff working alongside universities, community groups and other city agencies to frame the problem and engage residents.

In the first challenge, 140 teams submitted applications, of which 6-10 were judged usable and 4-6 high quality by an independent panel including representatives from Microsoft and Prospect Silicon Valley; four finalists shared $5,000 in combined funding plus workspace, and the winning team received a further $5,000 and introductions to interested city departments. In the second challenge, university teams from Santa Clara University and San José State built a low-cost flood-sensor system after the Mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation raised $45,000 from partners including the Santa Clara Valley Water District, Microsoft and Cisco. Unleash Your Geek 3.0 (2020) offered $100,000 in seed funding across projects such as firefighting drones and automated Vietnamese/Spanish translation tools; some winning prototypes have since been implemented by the city or are undergoing further testing.

A key lesson between the first and second challenges was to engage relevant stakeholders early and better integrate solutions with city departments; the programme is described as having changed how San José city government works, from embracing new technology to partnering with its tech community. It is presented as replicable by other cities via a dedicated committee for choosing challenges, funding and implementation, though the source material notes it is unclear whether another challenge round has been announced since 2021.