<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 24.625px;">The Smart Chicago Collaborative is a civic organization devoted to using technology to make lives better in Chicago. We&nbsp;were&nbsp;formed to address the challenge of the lack of broadband Internet access for all Chicagoans. More broadly, we work to apply the transformative power of technology to solve problems for the people of Chicago.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 24.625px;">We are a startup that was founded in part by our municipal government and nurtured by some of its most venerable institutions.&nbsp;Our founding partners are the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 70, 127); text-decoration: none;">City of Chicago</a>, the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.macfound.org/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 70, 127); text-decoration: none;">John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="http://cct.org/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 70, 127); text-decoration: none;">The Chicago Community Trust</a>.&nbsp;As a funding collaborative, we&nbsp;help bring together&nbsp;municipal, philanthropic, and corporate investments in civic innovation.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 24.625px;">We have a host of current&nbsp;<a href="http://www.smartchicagocollaborative.org/projects/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 70, 127); text-decoration: none;">projects</a>&nbsp;and partnerships, and we are actively seeking to connect ideas and resources in all areas of philanthropy in Chicago.</p>