We are Smart Columbus and we are:


Organizing a Smart City.

There’s no one way to be a smart city. It is important that your city’s efforts to become smart are rooted in your community values. In Columbus, we believe bringing diverse partners to the table, while educating residents about the rapidly-evolving electrification industry is the first step to move forward on smart city initiatives.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
African Proverb
Building a Smart Foundation

Smart city and electrification programs should encompass the public, private and academic sectors and by nature will challenge regional players to think differently about the future. Writing the Smart City Challenge grant application was our first step in bringing partners across all sectors together to make a commitment to changing mobility in the Columbus region. After Columbus won the Challenge, we worked quickly to figure out our structure, people and place.

The Columbus Way

Get Smart 'The Columbus Way'

A 2015 Harvard Business School case study coined the phrase, The Columbus Way, capturing a decades-long spirit of collaboration that has been repeatedly demonstrated in tackling big challenges in central Ohio to transform the region.

The Columbus Way origins

Teaching Stakeholders and the Community About Smart Columbus

Smart Columbus Live started as a way for the team to generate buy-in from community stakeholders and educate Columbus residents about our mobility and sustainability concepts for the future.

Rallying the community

About the Region

The City of Columbus is the 14th largest city in the U.S., and the Columbus Region is home to a population of 2.1 million. The Region is the headquarters for 15 Fortune 1,000 companies and has one of the highest concentrations of college students in the nation, and one of the highest populations of millennials.

See our region's demographics

Improving Quality of Life

The City of Columbus won $40 from the USDOT for grant-funded programs to test how emerging mobility technologies can improve equity and quality of life.

Learn About The Projects
Partnering With Employers
Smart City Best Practices

Hire the Experts

Standing up a smart city office to manage smart city projects takes cross-functional support from stakeholders and people who care about regional development.

Tips on finding smart talent

Carbon Neutrality Goals

Mayor Andrew Ginther’s goal for the City of Columbus to become carbon neutral by 2050 falls in line with the $2 million American Cities Climate Challenge award from Bloomberg Philanthropies presented to Columbus in 2018.

More about the city's efforts

Set Electrification Goals

We looked at peer cities while leaning on national experts to help us craft bold electrification goals that our partners could collaborate to attain.

Picking the right goals

Create a Smart Brand

Our brand is unique - it's inclusive and purposefully not green. The strategy behind our brand was to inspire our community in a way that is both tech-forward and human.

More about the missing 'A'

Keep Residents Educated and Engaged

Creating smart initiatives that would impact the diverse communities of Columbus was a priority for the grant funding. Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin discusses how Smart Columbus uses emerging technology to serve residents' needs.

Connecting with the community
City Of Columbus