New Projects: Helping Small Businesses Access COVID-19 Relief

San Francisco, California — We are thrilled to introduce the third and final set of projects from our Tech Executive Leadership Initiative Government Challenges series.

The projects, focused on Helping Small Businesses Access COVID-19 Relief, provide practical tools for states considering use of vaccine verification tools. We released the projects at our webinar today; you can watch a video of the event here.

We invite you to read more below, and to check out this project and others on our website: Aspen Tech Policy Hub Projects.

A Centralized Data-Enabled Form for Small Business Relief

by  Lodrina Cherne, Andrea Flores, Trish Gray, Benjamin Hersh, and Harry Max

This project recommends that the Foggyton Digital Services utilize data to power a universal form for small business services. Instead of requiring businesses to figure out numerous tedious applications, the city should create a centralized form that is shared between the Foggyton agencies that grant small business permits, relief, and other services.

City Relationship Manager Portal

by Guna Jayaseelapandian, Sridevi Joshi, Maggie Klancnik, Dan Miller, and Matt Perkins

This project proposes that Foggyton develop a City Relationship Manager (CRM): a technology platform to manage all of the city’s interactions with small businesses and community-based organizations. The platform should model Customer Relationship Manager software commonly used in the private sector to help the city organize vital details about the businesses it serves.

Digital Small Business Concierge

by Anupam DattaMajumdar, Sue Hendrickson, and Sonya Pryor-Jones

This project recommends that the City of Foggyton deploy a small business-focused chatbot, the Small Business Concierge, to improve user experiences and service delivery. The chatbot would serve as a user-friendly guide to help small business owners navigate complex websites, applications, and services.

Learn more about these and other projects here.