The City of Los Angeles is working to improve quality of life for all residents, including underserved communities, through the use of data, technology, and user experience design. To help advance this goal, the City of Los Angeles’ Information Technology Agency (ITA) hired FUSE Executive Fellow Dawn Comer to develop a strategic plan to improve city services through data and technology.

Dawn brought together cross-departmental stakeholders to craft use cases for smart city solution pilots that could be implemented via public-private partnerships in the areas of public safety, mobility, health and wellness, connectivity, and digital inclusion. Dawn also engaged with the community to gain insights into user experience and to generate design data points. Working with ITA’s data scientist, Dawn also provided a framework for consistent and streamlined evaluation of projects in the Data Science Federation, a data analytics collaborative between 14 colleges and universities and city departments. These efforts are helping the city embrace innovation, and prepare for the continuously evolving impact of technology on how services are designed and delivered.