My Smart City Platform Continues To Expand, Innovate And Empower Citizens To Be A Voice In Their City

Acumen Software, the South African software solutions company that builds service delivery systems, launched the first phase of its My Smart City citizen’s platform last year. The platform enables citizens to log their service delivery issues on the mobile app or website and is the first digital offering of its kind in the country.

My Smart City has seen its support grow in the cities where it has launched. The platform is available in the cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and now eThekwini. Both the City of Cape Town and City Power have integrated My Smart City into their systems. The team intends connecting to all municipal systems to enable the automation of information flow from citizens.

“As call volumes have increased through our platform and with the day-to-day interactions between our dispatch centre and the various municipal call centres, municipalities have expressed their realisation that we are not a threat to them, but rather a channel through which citizens are able to log issues in a simple and effective manner,” said Joao Zoio.

Citizens can now also rally together through the new My Smart City social feed. The powerful, personalised social feed has a ‘News’ feed and an ‘Alerts’ feed:

• The “Alerts” section is for information sharing about load shedding, water outages, power outages, natural disasters, and roadworks.
• The “News Feed” section allows users to view, create, share, and engage with posts created by those within their areas. This could include a ward councillor, a neighbourhood watch group, or a concerned neighbour. It is a channel where people can raise concerns and receive real-time feedback not only from your concerned neighbours but active community groups as well.

My Smart City, free to citizens and the cities it operates in, aims to change the way citizens, businesses, community groups and public sector service providers communicate, and collaborate. To give citizens a voice and be the bridge that builds relationships between all stakeholders, My Smart City hopes to assist in the repair of city infrastructure, build citizen morale and ease some of the burden on local municipalities. Bringing citizens and public service providers together through technology creates efficiency and accountability.

My Smart City is available on Android, iOS, and on the web at www.mysmart.city. After registering on the platform users can immediately log and monitor service delivery issues.