Residents in Cape Town and Johannesburg can now utilise a free mobile and desktop-based platform for some of their service delivery needs.
The My Smart City platform was developed by software development and business consulting firm Acumen Software. It allows residents to report issues such as potholes, monitor power or water outages, communicate with local municipal officials, to name a few services.
The company says that, in time, users will be able to source private services, gain access to community, social and sporting events, and even manage crowd-funding initiatives.
The two South African cities are part of the first phase rollout of the web and mobile-based platform with a big aim to sign up four million registered users.
“My Smart City is giving South Africans a voice to see the resolution of service delivery issues and to allow them to view issues and log incidents, prioritise them and connect the right service providers to resolve them,” says Joao Zoio, CEO of Acumen Software.
“We believe the platform has the potential to Uber-ise service delivery by putting the power in the hands of citizens who use the platform. In time, the platform will also create jobs for thousands of citizens and private contractors.”
On funding the platform’s development and launch, Acumen Software stated that it secured private equity investment from Capitec-baked Imvelo Ventures and Sappi-funded Andzani Ventures.
According to Acumen Software, the My Smart City platform has already been integrated into the City of Cape Town’s call management system and aims to connect to all municipal systems to enable the automation of information flow from citizens
The company says My Smart City is powered by Forcelink, which is its “business-to-business mobile field service ERP” solution.
Forcelink, it reveals, is “used by the City of Cape Town to manage the MyCiTi Bus infrastructure, as well as by Joburg’s City Power to manage outages and maintenance work on the electricity network.”
“With the My Smart City platform, we are leveraging our Forcelink solution backbone to offer the public a B2C communal platform. The platform will allow citizens, city officials, councillors and service providers to engage in a safe and controlled environment, with the sole purpose of improving services in the city,” says COO Kennedy Mogotsi.
“My Smart City is an extension to Forcelink, which is a software platform that was created because we saw a desperate need in the South African market for a SaaS (software-as-a-service) mobile field services ERP management solution that could scale from SMMEs to large multinationals. Being a SaaS solution means that My Smart City is backed by a system that offers real benefits that non-digital solutions cannot offer.”
My Smart City is available for download from the Google Play Store and App Store, and on the web.
Source: ITWeb
