Innovation Team

Municipal governments tend to focus most of their limited resources managing day-to-day operations and responsibilities, with little capacity or ability for developing systematic improvements and organizational changes. A collaboration between the City of Paterson and Passaic County Community College seeks to change that dynamic.

The City of Paterson has created an Innovation Team that will deploy a range of strategies, including quantitative and qualitative research and design-based innovation, to bring greater clarity and new solutions to the city's most pressing problems. Innovation Team members will be employed by Passaic County Community College but will be based in Paterson City Hall, reporting on a day-to-day basis to the Mayor and Chief of Staff. The Innovation Team will also collaborate with the larger network of government innovation programs run by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.

Chief Innovation Officer - Ed Boze

Edward Boze brings decades of innovation experience to his current role, including from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Xerox Business Services, where he formed their Center of Excellence and created their Office of Innovation based upon the principle that everyone should be engaged in transforming the company. Ed also brings tremendous experience in crowdsourcing innovation to Paterson from his work with numerous startups. 

Chief Data Officer - Harsha Mallajoysula

Harsha Mallajoysula comes to Paterson from the West Coast, where he worked in a variety of Silicon Valley startups, non-profits, and local governments. Most recently, Harsha served as the Senior Data Scientist on Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Data and Innovation team in Los Angeles, using data to better inform government policies in areas including homelessness, housing affordability, future of work, policing, and sustainability.

Current Innovation Team Projects

• Creating "PatStat" - a continuous improvement program focused on metrics/key performance indicators and feedback loops for each department
• Implementing a Business Process Management System (BPMS) and Knowledge Management System (KMS) for city government
• Exploring Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for city government
• Developing an inventory of all data assets owned by the city
  
• Establishing an open data policy and creating an open data portal
• Co-chairing the Mayor's Homelessness and Opioid Emergency (HOpE) Initiatives cross-boundary collaboration sessions
• Exploring ways to use technology and innovation to improve public safety, from better deploying police resources, creating "virtual" neighborhood watches, using data to help curb gun violence, and digitally engaging residents
• Offering Paterson as a "smart city lab" to startup partners looking to test cutting-edge solutions to urban challenges and helping Patersonians in the process
• Analyzing how city government can assist with workforce development initiatives throughout Paterson