National Competition Highlights Innovative Technologies Addressing Challenges Facing Cities
Austin, TX – Today, Symbium was announced as the winner of the Mayors’ Matchup Civic Tech Pitch Competition at South by Southwest (SXSW). Each year at SXSW, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) helps organize a competition with entrepreneurs and innovators promoting new ideas and technologies to address major city challenges. Symbium will now go on to pitch their technology to hundreds of mayors at USCM’s 93rd Annual Meeting, which will take place in Tampa (FL) June 19 – 22, 2025. The event serves as the finale to the Civic I/O Mayors’ Summit at SXSW.
This year, the competition’s judges were Arlington (TX) Mayor Jim Ross, Cincinnati (OH) Mayor Aftab Pureval, Rancho Cordova (CA) Mayor Siri Pulipati, Riverside (CA) Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson and Rochester Hills (MI) Mayor Bryan Barnett.
Symbium was one of six companies competing for the $10,000 prize.
Chief.AI is building a system of AI-native products to supercharge leaders across governments and c-suites. The AI-enabled software helps teams manage the time, relationships and priorities of government officials.
Closure helps law enforcement search evidence to fight crime. Investigators pull key case evidence into Closure, ask questions and get verifiable answers, quickly.
Fordje eliminates city code and zoning confusion, giving residents, businesses and developers instant 24/7 answers. Fordje’s tools create clarity in seconds, eliminating painful back-and-forth and unexpected delays for cities and developers.
Legislade is an AI-powered software suite designed to help local governments streamline workflows, automate research and drafting, and simplify legal reviews.
Resource Monitor revolutionizes water management through simple yet powerful monitoring technology. The integrated solution combines industrial-grade digital flow meters with an intuitive cloud platform, giving users unprecedented visibility into their water systems.
Symbium enables instant permitting for home improvement and energy-saving projects. Permit applicants use Symbium to scope out a project and then submit a permit application, which is instantly approved with 100% accuracy because the regulatory checks are performed right in the browser.
“Symbium strives to democratize regulations for the most complex energy-savings projects so that they are accessible to everyone. SXSW has been a catalyst for our expansion, and we are grateful to the U.S. Conference of Mayors for their support. We look forward to continuing our discussions with mayors at the Conference’s Annual Meeting in June,” said Leila Banijamali, CEO of Symbium.
“I voted for Symbium because not only is their product very interesting and could make my life easier as a mayor, but Leila also gave a very good presentation. When you judge these things, it comes down to both clarity in presentation but also quality of the product, and those two things came together in Symbium. They stand to offer critical assistance to cities across the country and I extend my congratulations to Leila and her team,” said Riverside (CA) Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson.
This week, mayors from across the country convened in Austin with Mayor Kirk Watson for SXSW and participated in the Civic I/O Mayors’ Summit. The summit features interactive discussions to empower local leaders to use emerging technologies to tackle cities’ biggest challenges. In addition to the summit, mayors took part in several SXSW interactive panels.