National Competition Showcases Cutting-Edge Technologies Addressing Some of the Greatest Challenges Facing Cities
Austin, TX – Today, Good Call was announced as the winner of the Mayor’s Matchup Civic Tech Pitch Competition at South By Southwest (SXSW). Each year at SXSW, the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) helps organize a competition with entrepreneurs and innovators promoting new ideas and technologies to address major city challenges. The winner of the event is awarded a $10,000 prize and is invited to pitch their technology to hundreds of mayors at the USCM Annual Meeting, which will take place later this year in Reno, NV. The event serves as the finale to the Civic I/O Mayors’ Summit at SXSW.
This year, the competition’s judges were the current President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) Miami, FL Mayor Francis X. Suarez, Cleveland, OH Mayor Justin Bibb, Phoenix, AZ Mayor Kate Gallego, and Louisville, KY Mayor Greg Fischer.
Good Call was one of six companies competing for the $10,000 prize.
- Samaritan: Helping people gain the social and financial support they need to find a stable home.
- State of Place: Harnessing the power of data to more quickly, efficiently, and effectively deliver places people deserve.
- Cortico: Bringing together human listening and machine learning to fuel public processes and community decision-making.
- JustAir: Support generational improvements of the air we breathe.
- JusticeText: Strengthening the ability of public defenders to analyze crucial data with evidence management software.
- Good Call: Creating systemic transformation by using technology and community organizing to provide immediate access to legal support.
Through a 24/7 hotline, Good Call offers immediate access to legal support for arrested individuals and advocates for legal intervention to be a standard process in cities nationwide.
“Good Call blew us away and offered exactly the kind of creative solutions that mayors are hungry for today. Cities are innovating and investing in new solutions to generational problems and constantly emerging ones. We must be nimble and adapt and every participant showed us the powerful potential that comes from cities collaborating with dynamic private sector partners,” said USCM President, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. “Congratulations to Jelani Anglin and the entire Good Call team.”
”I’m honored to have been invited to pitch Good Call, which I started 5 years ago, at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ civic tech competition at SXSW this morning —it’s the type of exposure and opportunity that young black entrepreneurs like me need to be able to scale our businesses,” said Jelani Anglin, Co-Founder & CEO of Good Call. “This $10,000 prize will help me hire more system-impacted folks, and I can’t wait to share Good Call with hundreds of mayors at the Conference’s Annual Meeting this June.”
Nearly 20 mayors from across the country convened in Austin for SXSW and participated in the Civic I/O Mayors’ Summit. The summit features interactive discussions to empower local leaders to use emerging technologies to tackle cities’ biggest challenges. In addition to the summit, mayors took part in several SXSW interactive panels. The topics included disinformation, gender equity, and tech startups.