Five Cities Selected as Winners in Bloomberg Philanthropies 2014 Mayors Challenge

Paris (ots/PRNewswire) -

Grand Prize Winner Barcelona Aims to Create Digital and Community
'Trust

Network' for Each of its At-Risk Elderly Residents

Athens, Greece; Kirklees in Yorkshire, UK; Stockholm, Sweden; and
Warsaw,

Poland Also Win Funds for Innovative Solutions to Pressing Urban
Challenges

Bloomberg Philanthropies today announced the winners in its 2014
Mayors Challenge, an ideas competition that encourages cities to
generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve
city life - and that have the potential to spread to other cities.

Barcelona will receive the Mayors Challenge Grand Prize for
Innovation and EUR5 million toward its proposal to create a digital
and community 'trust network' for each of its at-risk elderly
residents. Mayors Challenge innovation prizes also were awarded to
Athens, Greece, Kirklees in Yorkshire, UK, Stockholm in Sweden, and
Warsaw in Poland. Each of which will receive EUR1 million to support
implementation of their unique ideas. The winners proposed solutions
that address some of Europe's most critical issue areas:
unemployment, energy efficiency, obesity, aging and improving the
overall effectiveness and efficiency of government. The ideas are
further described below.

"To meet the biggest challenges of the 21st century, city leaders
must think creatively and be unafraid to try new things - and the
Mayors Challenge is designed to help them do that," said Michael R.
Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies. "We received great
proposals from all over Europe, and the competition over the past
year has been fierce. The decision for our selection committee was
not easy, but the five winning ideas we announced today represent the
best of the best, and all have the potential to improve lives. Cities
are shaping the future of our planet, and Bloomberg Philanthropies is
committed to helping mayors pioneer new innovations - and to helping
their most promising ideas spread around the world."

More than 150 top cities from 28 nations entered the 2014 Mayors
Challenge. The winning cities were selected based on four criteria:
their idea's vision and creativity, potential for impact,
transferability, and viability of implementation. Their evolving
ideas reflect a diverse array of complex and common challenges facing
cities today:

- Barcelona, Spain: Collaborative Care Networks for Better Aging
More than one in five Barcelona residents is over 65, and by 2040, one in four will
be. As lives grow longer, Barcelona - like many cities globally - is grappling with
new health problems and debilitating social isolation. To address this growing
problem, Barcelona will use digital and low-tech strategies to create a network of
family members, friends, neighbors, social workers, and volunteers who together make
up a "trust network" for each at-risk elderly resident. This will help identify gaps
in care, enable coordination of support, and promote quality of life.

- Athens, Greece: Synathina, a Public Platform for Engaged Citizens
The devastating economic crisis has affected employment, infrastructure, as well as
life in urban centers in Greece. Athens will create an online platform that will
connect the new dynamic input of civil society with local institutions and local
government to collaboratively devise solutions to local problems, ensuring solid
foundations and sustainable policies for the revival of Athens' neighborhoods.

- Kirklees, United Kingdom: Kirklees Shares
Budget cuts in Kirklees are eating into government programs and services. The city
will embrace the sharing economy to make use of untapped local resources so it can do
more with less. Kirklees will pool the idle assets of the government and non-profit
sectors - from lawnmowers to trucks, unused space to citizens' skills and expertise -
and make these assets available through an online sharing platform that will allow for
borrowing, bartering, and time-banking.

- Stockholm, Sweden: Biochar - for a Better City Ecosystem
Stockholm, like many global cities, is confronting the effects of climate change.
Stockholm will create a citywide program that activates citizens as front-line change
agents to curb this escalating problem. Together, the city and its residents will
produce biochar, an organic substance that increases tree growth, sequesters carbon,
and purifies storm water runoff. Citizens will bring their green waste to locations
across the city for conversion to biochar and, ultimately, redistribution.

- Warsaw, Poland: Virtual Warsaw - Urban Information System for Visually
Impaired The blind and visually impaired are too often cut off from their peers and
forced to spend huge amounts of time getting around cities. To facilitate mobility for
the visually impaired, Warsaw will place thousands of beacons around the city that
communicate with users through mobile apps. These tools promise to transform lives,
saving the visually impaired hours of travel per day and allowing them greater
self-sufficiency.

"The Mayors Challenge is about surfacing and spreading the best
ideas among cities," said James Anderson, head of Government
Innovation programs for Bloomberg Philanthropies. "These winning
ideas embody key themes that will increasingly define the way cities
work: engage citizens, leverage technology, never accept the failed
status quo."

The 2014 Mayors Challenge is Bloomberg Philanthropies' first in
Europe after a successful inaugural competition in the United States.
Cities that entered have resident populations ranging from fewer than
250,000 residents to more than 1 million, and represent 28 countries
across Europe. Finalists were selected from 155 applicants and their
proposed solutions illustrate both complex challenges and common
urban issues across cities and regions. The selection committee is
comprised of experts in innovation and urban policy who also are from
11 countries across Europe.

In addition, three leading European organizations supported the
Mayors Challenge: EUROCITIES, which helped to engage its membership
of Europe's largest cities and partner cities that collectively
govern 130 million citizens across 35 countries; LSE Cities, who
provided research from its international center at the London School
of Economics and Political Science; and Nesta, the United Kingdom's
innovation foundation, which served as an implementation partner for
the competition.

Accompanying the prize money, each of the five cities will receive
a trophy specially designed by world-renowned artist Olafur Eliasson.
The Mayors Challenge Prize for Innovation award is a spherical
sculpture formed by three concentric circles - square, circle, and
dodecagon - encircling a hanging compass. The compass indicates
steadily north, uniting the prize winners and assisting viewers in
imagining their collective responsibility to navigate towards the
greater good for all.

The Mayors Challenge is an ideas competition for cities. It exists
to encourage cities to develop powerful new approaches to major urban
challenges - and to help the best of those ideas spread. Over the
course of the competition, cities are supported in a process of
"stretching, strengthening, and refining" their innovations.
Accompanying their prize money, the winning cities receive expert
coaching and technical assistance as they bring their ideas to life.
The Mayors Challenge is part of Bloomberg Philanthropies' Government
Innovation portfolio, which is focused on promoting innovation and
spreading effective ideas among cities.

Further detail and related elements for this year's Mayors
Challenge can be found via: http://mayorschallenge.bloomberg.org

More information about the Mayors Challenge competition is
available through
http://www.bloomberg.org/initiative/mayors_challenge

About Bloomberg Philanthropies

Bloomberg Philanthropies' mission is to ensure better, longer
lives for the greatest number of people. The organization focuses on
five key areas for creating lasting change: Public Health,
Environment, Education, Government Innovation and the Arts. Bloomberg
Philanthropies encompasses all of Michael R. Bloomberg's charitable
activities, including his foundation and his personal giving. In
2013, Bloomberg Philanthropies distributed $452 million. For more
information on the philanthropy, please visit bloomberg.org
[http://www.bloomberg.org ] or follow us on Facebook
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[http://instagram.com/bloombergdotorg ] and Twitter @BloombergDotOrg.

Contact

Bloomberg Philanthropies, Meghan Womack, +212 205 0176,
meghan@bloomberg.org

Edelman, Virginie Serre, +33 (0)1 56 69 75 11,
virginie.serre@edelman.com

ots Originaltext: Bloomberg Philanthropies
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