The Australian Government has released draft guidelines for its $50 million Smart Cities and Suburbs Program. 

The program aims to deploy new ideas not yet seen in Australia and has been designed to accelerate the roll out of ready-to-deploy projects, and to provide support and incubation for projects in their early stages.

“The projects must place the citizen at the centre," Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation Angus Taylor said.

"Smart Cities need to take a people-first approach to designing and delivering responsive public services, with the help of smart technologies.”

When the first funding round opens in the second quarter of 2017, eligible applicants will be able to apply for up to $5 million in federal grant funding. The minimum grant amount is $100,000 and at least $10 million will be available to support smaller projects with a total value under $1 million.

The program is planned to run over four years until 2019-20 and there will be multiple funding rounds over that time.

Taylor said there had already been more than 800 downloads of the draft guidelines.

“We’ve had significant interest in the draft guidelines,” he said.

“Communities of all sizes will be able to apply for funding under the program. We’re looking for digital and data solutions which solve everyday urban problems and have the potential to be scaled up and delivered Australia wide.”