KC Civic Innovation

Connecting public challenges with regional ideas, expertise, and resources

A Regional Cabinet for Civic Innovation

KC Civic Innovation brings local governments, technologists, researchers, entrepreneurs, and community partners together to explore how technology can help address public challenges. The network builds the relationships and shared capacity needed to identify promising ideas, evaluate their relevance to Kansas City, and advance opportunities for testing and collaboration.

Convened by KC Digital Drive, the network connects innovation leaders from the City of Kansas City, Missouri; the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas; Johnson County, Kansas; and the Mid-America Regional Council.

Turning shared learning into opportunities for action

Local governments face many of the same challenges, but often have limited time and resources to investigate emerging technologies, assess new tools, or develop partnerships. KC Civic Innovation creates a regional space to share what partners are learning and connect that knowledge to practical needs.

The network’s work focuses on three priorities:

Understand existing assets and capacity. Build a clearer picture of the tools, expertise, processes, and innovation efforts already available across participating governments.
Connect and evaluate opportunities. Share promising technologies, potential pilots, research partnerships, funding opportunities, and insights from national networks.
Identify problems worth solving. Work with government partners to define pressing needs and connect them with relevant expertise, resources, and potential solutions.

Discussions span topics such as AI readiness, data and analytics, public trust in technology, public-space activation, and approaches to procurement that start with a defined challenge. Partners use these conversations to surface shared interests and determine where further investigation or collaboration could be valuable.

KC Digital Drive’s role

KC Digital Drive serves as the network’s backbone, convening partners and connecting local priorities with the region’s broader technology and innovation ecosystem. We bring forward opportunities from entrepreneurs, universities, companies, and national civic technology networks, helping partners assess which ideas merit attention and what it would take to move them forward.

The KCMO Public Health Innovation project offers one model for this approach: a focused discovery and design process that identifies departmental challenges and connects them with resources for developing solutions.

Through KC Civic Innovation, we are building Kansas City’s capacity to learn across jurisdictions, test promising ideas, and put technological change to work for the public good.

Core partners

City of Kansas City, Missouri
Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas
Johnson County, Kansas
Mid-America Regional Council

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