City of Long Beach Announces Launch of "BizPort" and Civic Innovation Summit

From The City of Long Beach:

LONG BEACH, CA - The City of Long Beach today launched its new online Business Portal, BizPort, a digital ombudsman to help entrepreneurs easily navigate the steps to start, manage, and grow a business. BizPort launched during Innovation Week, which features a series of public events throughout October highlighting the creativity, diversity and entrepreneurial spirit throughout Long Beach.

“BizPort, our new Business Portal, was designed and conceived from the ground up by local entrepreneurs to give them the support and resources they need,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “Small businesses are crucial to our community, and BizPort will make the process of starting and running a business much easier in Long Beach.”

The new business portal will clarify and simplify the startup process for new businesses and add additional resources to help existing small businesses grow.

Although 75 percent of applicants have their business license issued within 12 days, the major aim of the business portal is to better prepare all entrepreneurs to get through the process quicker. BizPort was developed by Code for America, a civic tech non-profit.

The new tool reduces the cost and confusion of starting a business by simplifying the application process, and linking entrepreneurs to business support resources across multiple government agencies.

Civic Innovation Summit

A Civic Innovation Summit on Thursday, October 6, is the second highlight of Innovation Week.

Ten Civic Innovation Awards will be handed to various City Departments and community partners who have demonstrated their ability to implement innovative solutions to some of the City’s challenges.

In addition, twelve prominent thought leaders will provide outstanding examples of civic innovation, including:

• Mayor Garcia will open the Long Beach Civic Innovation Summit on Thursday, October 6, at 9:00 am, with the introduction of the City’s newest resource for entrepreneurs, BizPort.
• Dr. Shawn Landres, a civic and community strategist, will present “Government Innovation: Regional Best Practices.”
• Mark Rosetti, a fellow with Code For America, will review how “Agile Development and User Centered Design,” shaped the City’s business portal.
• Heather Barker, Assistant Professor of Design at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) College of the Arts, will highlight “Design Thinking in Government.”

“Innovation happens when thought leaders from the community, academia, and local government come together to network and learn from each other,” said John Keisler, i-team Director. “We want to make government innovation a permanent part of the City of Long Beach.”

The summit will take place at the Long Beach Convention Center. For more information, click here. The Civic Innovation Summit is the first of its kind in the region, and will be live-streamed at www.longbeach.gov.

Innovation Week
Long Beach’s Innovation Week is part of InnovateLA, a celebration of the depth and breadth of innovation and entrepreneurship across Los Angeles County.

Innovation Week features more than a dozen events showcasing Long Beach’s contributions to the innovative, diverse, and creative fabric of the region, including:

• Geography Lab: App Challenge, hosted by ESRI, CSULB and the City’s Innovation Team (i-team).
• ArtOber First Friday Long Beach in Bixby Knolls.
• Open Studio Tour to meet established Long Beach professional artists in their working environments that aren’t usually open to the public.

For a full list of events with dates and location click here.

Image via Shutterstock.