South Bend outlines 2025 technology priorities: SmartRec, expanded cameras, AI tools and a $12 million digital equity bid

Denise Lynn Riedel, chief innovation officer for the City of South Bend, told the Common Council on March 24 that the Department of Innovation and Technology will focus in 2025 on customer service modernization, cybersecurity, expanded sensor networks and managed rollouts of generative AI tools.

Riedel said the department will implement a new recreation registration system (SmartRec), continue expansion of the city’s real‑time crime center cameras and pursue digital equity and broadband projects including a recommended $12,000,000 federal grant for the South Bend–Elkhart region. “Our mantra is ‘listen first, build with,’” Riedel said, summarizing the department’s approach to technology and resident engagement.

The presentation reviewed 2024 outcomes — digitized paper forms, a resident success team tied to 311, expanded public‑safety camera partnerships and initial uses of generative AI for internal translation and staff tools — and laid out planned 2025 work. Key items named in the update: SmartRec for parks and recreation (to unify program registration across…