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What steps will you take to support modernization and digitization of operations within the City of Austin?

City Data AI Assistant – Everyone can relate to the challenge of locating the actual thing you are looking for on the city website. We need an AI assistant who we can simply ask questions, and receive the correct and appropriate response. For example “Can I see all the emails Steve Adler sent from January 2015 until March 2016?”, and you could just get them immediately emailed to you… “What is the operating budget of Austin Energy?” “How long has Austin been named Austin?” “Who was on the city Council in 2013?” “What policies did Laura Morrison introduce that were adopted by entire council? And what has the effect been since?” We all need this tool. It’s time to get efficient with information requests!

Budget on Blockchain or similar structure – This is a public ledger where all financial transactions can be instantly monitored by the people in real time, where the records cannot be altered or faked, and where we can incorporate more democratic, and ultimately transition to full, decentralize authority of the budget by the people.

Mobile Voting Application – It’s time for a voting mobile voting application. This is the most effective way of boosting turnout among voter 30 and below, and this is crucial to build for the security of our voting system. This gives the people more instant power to vote daily on city policy, and builds a direct link for increased citizen engagement. We can incorporate rank- choice-voting, fluid/liquid democracy, and any other new and innovative ways to get people involved and give more power to their votes. This is also one tool as an accountability measure to end corruption in politics.

Open Source Modelling Tools for anything/everything — Our first infrastructure investment should be an open-source citizen-solutions virtual-reality urban-design modelling tool. This platform, a sort of Sims/Google Earth/IBM Watson, empowers any citizen to create a virtual simulation of how they would design solutions for our transportation infrastructure, and then model the outcomes using past, present, and any probable future traffic patterns. These designs can be uploaded publicly for our entire community to engage with them, revise and republish, and upvote their favorites. Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, and hive-mind awareness will help us find the most desired outcomes more easily, and most effectively minimize risk by maximizing our probabilities of finding the absolute best solution available.
Literally a 10 year old could dream up a genius route for a train, or a retired piano teacher could design a system of over-under-constant-flow intersections that completely eliminate traffic altogether. This platform is key to us making the best decisions that aren’t improperly influenced by profit-motivated industry norms. We must always strive for greatness.