Macon-Bibb creating online tool to simplify business licensing & permitting process

On Thursday, November 14, Macon-Bibb County's IT Department, Planning & Zoning, and NewTown Macon participated in the fourth annual The Opportunity Project for Cities (TOPC) Demo Day, which is hosted by The Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University and the Centre for Public Impact.

Over the last few months, our IT Department has been working with other tech experts through TOPC to make the business license and permit process a lot easier for business owners through our website. On Thursday, they presented those plans as well as a demo of what navigating the website looks like.

"We want Macon-Bibb to be as business friendly as possible, and that meant bringing together a team from multiple agencies and departments to streamline the licensing and permitting process…and making it easier to understand," said County Manager Dr. Keith Moffett. "They all tackled the problem early on, and with the support of our national partners, are preparing to launch an amazing new resource."

The fourth cohort of TOPC partnered local governments and community organizations with pro bono support from technologists at Google.org to design new digital tools that address resident challenges, powered by local data. Click here to read full details of Macon-Bibb's participation.

"We actually began this process in the third cohort by looking at how our partners interacted with each other and creating internal process solutions," said Barbara Marlin, Macon-Bibb County GIS Manager. "With the internal process streamlined, we were ready to begin working on how the public accesses these services, and we know this will help businesses both large and small."

Our IT Department is expecting to fully launch the new site in early Spring 2025.

This year's Demo Day featured local governments and community organizations from Akron, OH; Macon-Bibb County, GA; Miami-Dade County, FL; and Ramsey County/Saint. Paul, MN as they showcase the digital tools they are developing, powered by open data, to address pressing community challenges. TOPC is supported by the Knight Foundation, with pro bono support from technologists provided by Google.org.

Demo Day provides a unique opportunity to see these developing solutions and hear about the learnings gained through a 20-week design cycle, during which governments, technologists, and community leaders have collaborated to co-create products that address residents' most critical needs.

About The Opportunity Project for Cities

The Opportunity Project for Cities is a program wherein local governments, community leaders, and pro bono Google technologists (including Product Managers, Software Engineers, UX Researchers, UX Designers, and more) work with residents to identify pressing local issues and prototype digital tools that use open data. The program aims to surface new open data technology solutions to address public challenges and foster cultures of government transparency, accessibility, and responsiveness to strengthen trust with residents and lay the foundation for lasting community-driven innovation.

This is the fourth cohort of The Opportunity Project for Cities and builds upon the successes and learnings from the 2021, 2022, and 2023 cycles in communities including Detroit, MI; Long Beach, CA; Saint Paul, MN; and San José, CA, as well as Macon-Bibb County, GA, and Miami-Dade County, FL.

The program was inspired by the U.S. Census Bureau's The Opportunity Project and adapted for local contexts by the Centre for Public Impact and the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University. The Opportunity Project for Cities is supported by the Knight Foundation, with pro bono technical support from Google.org.

About the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University

The Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University seeks to improve people's daily lives by helping governments utilize data, design, technology, and policy to better meet the needs of their residents. An anchor of Georgetown University's Tech and Society Initiative, the Beeck Center works alongside public, private, and non-profit organizations to identify and establish human-centered solutions that help government services work better for everyone, especially the most vulnerable and underserved populations. The Beeck Center's work was recognized on Fast Company's 2023 Next Big Things in Tech list. For more information, please visit beeckcenter.georgetown.edu.

About the Centre for Public Impact

At the Centre for Public Impact, we believe in the potential of government to bring about better outcomes for people. Yet, we have found that the systems, structures, and processes of government today are often not set up to respond to the complex challenges we face as a society. That's why we have an emerging vision to reimagine government so that it works for everyone.

A global not-for-profit organization founded by the Boston Consulting Group, we act as a learning partner for governments, public servants, and the diverse network of changemakers who are leading the charge to reimagine government. We work with them to hold space to collectively make sense of the complex challenges we face and drive meaningful change through learning and experimentation.

About the Knight Foundation

We are social investors who support a more effective democracy by funding free expression and journalism, arts and culture in community, research in areas of media and democracy, and in the success of American cities and towns where the Knight brothers once published newspapers. KF.org

About Google.org

Google.org, Google's philanthropy, brings the best of Google to help solve some of humanity's biggest challenges combining funding, innovation, and technical expertise to support underserved communities and provide opportunity for everyone. We engage nonprofits and social enterprises who make a significant impact on the communities they represent, and whose work has the potential to produce meaningful change. We want a better world, faster - and we believe in leveraging technology and applying scalable data-driven innovation to move the needle.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.