The City of El Paso and the Kapor Center are proud to announce the selection of El Paso as one of the three cities in the country to overhaul how its government partners with the startups working to solve urgent public problems. The City of El Paso is committed to make it dramatically easier for mission-driven, gap-closing startups — companies using technology to expand access to essentials like child care, housing, health care, and jobs— to work with City government.
“El Paso has always been a city that builds. Our problem has never been a shortage of good ideas; it’s the systems that slow them down,” said El Paso Mayor Renard U. Johnson. “We’re changing that. We want the folks who are solving real problems for our families to work with the City effectively and often, and this initiative is a step in the right direction.”The PRIME Alliance grew out of the “Breaking Down Barriers” report from the Kapor Center, which drew on more than 60 entrepreneurs and investors with experience across over 3,000 public-sector contracts. It found that the hardest part of solving a public problem is often not building the solution but getting through the government’s door—slow contracting timelines, fragmented outreach, confusing applications, and duplicative compliance requirements that keep proven tools from reaching residents. The report estimates that closing persistent gaps in sectors such as housing, education, health care, and child care could add roughly $100.7 billion to the U.S. economy each year.
“A lot of cities say they want innovation. El Paso is doing the harder thing — changing the rules that decide whether a good idea ever reaches a resident,” said Chike Aguh, Head of Innovation and Strategy for Gap-Closing Startups at the Kapor Center.
“That’s why we’re so excited to build the future of this program with them as we chart out what this initiative can, and should, look like.”
As a founding PRIME Alliance city, El Paso will work with the Kapor Center to put the report’s framework into practice: connecting founders to the business-support resources the City and region already fund, reimagining its procurement and compliance processes, and rewriting rules that slow partnership.
About the PRIME Alliance
The PRIME Alliance is a multiyear Kapor Center initiative that brings local and state governments together with gap-closing startups — companies whose products are designed to close opportunity gaps in areas such as child care, housing, health care, education, workforce development, and financial stability. Led by Chike Aguh, the Alliance grew out of the Kapor Center’s 2026 report, Breaking Down Barriers: Overcoming Government Hurdles for Gap-Closing Founders, which drew on more than 60 entrepreneurs and investors with experience across over 3,000 public-sector contracts and estimated as much as $100.7 billion in potential annual economic gains from faster, more effective public-private partnerships.
About the Kapor Center
The Kapor Center works to make the technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Its work spans expanding access to technology and computer science education, conducting research on access and opportunity in computing, investing in community organizations and gap-closing ventures, and broadening access to capital for entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds.